The MP3 Player

Back when I was in my 20s in the 1990s, when marriage and parenthood where things that happened to other people, I had a serious CD buying habit. I religiously bought Q, Vox, Select and the NME and bought anything and everything that looked interesting. This had two major consequences - 1) I had too many CDs that bordered on the unlistenable and occasionally profane and 2) a large overdraft. My girlfriend (now wife) soon knocked that out of me. The discussion went like this:

Before we moved in together:
'Cool record collection.''Yep.'

After we moved in together:
'Where on earth are we going to put all these CDs? Don't you dare buy any more!'

Fast forward nine years. As soon as Little Miss Koinuchan discovered that CDs make a loud satisfying crashing noise when dragged off a shelf the consequences of a mis-spent youth searching through the racks at HMV and Virgin were banished to the loft. I ripped everything worth hearing and boxed everything. But yet I can't bear to throw, sell or give any of them away. Even Mark Keds doesn't give a fraggle's cuss about The Senseless Things anymore, so it doesn't make any sense that I do.

Anyway... My daughter is starting to show an interest in music, admittedly in Parentally Approved Kids' Music Off The Telly. This means that my beloved MP3 player, previously the domain of all things loud, atonal and distorted, is starting to be over-run by nursery rhymes and jaunty little tunes from CBeebies. This has had several unfortunate side effects:

1) Every single car journey is soundtracked either by Josie Jump exhaulting us to jump a little higher or by darling daughter yelling at us to play it again a little louder.

2) My MP3 player now plays nursery rhymes at random. It's jarring to be driving drifting along to Mogwai when suddenly 'Jumping Jack' or 'Old McDonald And His Wretched Farm' suddenly pop up out of nowhere.

3) My daughter may discover some of the more outre things that I may occasionally listen to. Exhibit #1: Rage Against The Machine's 'Killing In The Name'. There is something wonderfully therapeutic about yelling 'Fuck You I Won't Do What You Tell Me!' as you are pootling along on a busy motorway boxed in between two lorries, a caravan and a milk float. Less so if your little daughter is sitting in the back and you see her big round eyes get a bit bigger and a lot rounder in your rear view mirror. You just know she is going to start singing 'Duck Glue Won't Smell Me' when you get home and you will be in Big Trouble.

I have a recurring nightmare that one day I will be doing the school run with half the neighbourhood's kids in the back. On will come this song and they will start singing along, my daughter singing loudest of all. I will drop them off and their parents will know. 'You've been playing That Song again, haven't you?' they'll say. 'It took us two weeks to get 'So Fucking Special' out their heads and now you have exposed them to 32 'Fucks' and a 'Motherfucker'. '

'What kind of idiot are you?'

Josie Jump it is then.