It is often said that you emulate your parents as you get older; that you start to do and say things that only sound horribly familiar after you've done or said them, and then you realise that it's started...that descent into being just like Them. (Or just 'old'; whichever you prefer).
One such huge realisation dawned slowly on me yesterday, as I listened to the free Guardian streaming of Laura Marling's new album ('A Creature I Don't Know' - out next Monday fans!). I love Laura Marling. She is whom I sometimes like to imagine I would be, had I anywhere near the sort of looks and talent needed for genuine acclaim. She's even had a whole break-up album written about her! But anyway...I was listening to one of the tracks on the album, called 'Night After Night' and I realised something. It sounds a LOT like Leonard Cohen's 'Famous Blue Raincoat', which is one of my Dad's favourite songs (Dad loves Leonard Cohen. He's is whom Dad sometimes likes to imagine he would be if...well, need I go on?!). I realised that, just like Rachel in 'Friends', I'd been trying so hard to avoid turning into my Mum that I hadn't seen I was actually, slowly but surely, morphing into Dad instead.
Of course, it hadn't always been like that. My sisters and I tried to rebel against Leonard Cohen as we grew up, and I like to think that's a normal response for eight, six and four year-olds trapped on a long car journey with a doleful voice droning "they sentenced me to twenty years of boredom..." in the background. Dad was a stickler for 'good' music in the car...otherwise known as music he liked. Whilst other kids drove round with 'The Smurfs' and the like for jangly and upbeat musical accompaniment, we endured lovely smiley Leonard, Roy Harper or Ralph McTell. My sisters and my saving grace came when Ralph McTell started presenting a kids' show called 'Alphabet Zoo' and then released an accompanying album...finally, something both Dad and we all could enjoy listening to in the car!
My personal rebellion against Cohen et al gained proper legs in the early Nineties with my fandom of Kylie and Jason. I'll always remember Dad on the phone to his brother at the time Jason's 'Ten Good Reasons' album came out, saying "I could just about bear Kylie, but this bloody Jason Donovan rubbish makes me want to slit my wrists...". Which of course, is exactly the sort of response you want from your parents, or any other older person for that matter, regarding 'your' music.
Now I'm older I must say I've developed a grudging liking for Leonard Cohen's music; mainly because I'm at the age where I need more substance from my entertainment these days and there aren't that many other artists who can provide such eloquent emotional rawness to go alongside a late-night glass of amaretto (God, I really am sounding like Dad now!) 'Suzanne' is now a song that can bring me to slight teariness if I hear it and am caught unawares; it being a song my sisters and I would sometimes sing along softly to in the back of the car (even though we had no idea what the lyrics meant!). And 'First We Take Manhattan' will always - always! - raise a smile as even Dad found the lyrics to that one funny and we'd all be creased up singing along to "remember me...I brought your groceries in..." and "I thank you for the items that you sent me...the monkey and the plywood violin (ha ha ha!)"
So in conclusion, it probably is a very good thing indeed that I don't have, or intend to have, children - as it's quite plain that I would only make them listen to Laura Marling in our chauffeur-driven car and force them to sing along to 'My Manic and I'. A Very Good Thing indeed.
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