We commonly focus on how music reflects the “generation gap”, with parents hating the music their kids love. How about music that helps bring families together. I talked with a friend who would take long trips through Idaho with her family. The thing she remembered best was how they’d play Abba 8-tracks, and she, her mom and grandmom would all sing along. I also thought that no matter how much me and my mom disagree, we can both commiserate over 50s/60s oldies and classic country. What music do you remember that helped you feel closer to your family?
My dad is a huge classic country fan, and it’s thanks to him and my older sister that I spent most of my teenaged years listening to country music. Though my dad and I are a lot alike in personality, and get along just fine, we don’t really have many common interests, so it was nice to have that little extra something to talk about.
That changed around 2002, when I gave up on the local country station and started listening to alt-rock and metal, and he started exclusively listening to independent country acts, and artists that were either popular when he was my age, or sound a lot like them. I figured our musical paths would never cross again but my tastes continued to expand well beyond what they once were, and now I listen to a wide variety of music, including a bit of americana, alt-country, folk, and even some classic country.
I gave him albums by Neko Case, Jenny Lewis, and She & Him for his birthday this past February, and he seemed to like them, which pleased me, and we might go see Willie Nelson next month at Riverbend (after already seeing him last year at Bonnaroo), which is a music festival in downtown Chattanooga.
From Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol We’re Despicable (Plunderer’s March)
Our strength is the “La, La, La-la-la-la” part 
Girl scout songs. My mom and her seven sisters were all girl scouts, and singing has always been a part of our family reunions and such:some 60s folk has worked its way into the cannon (Peter, Paul and Mary, Kingston Trio type stuff) but it’s mostly old-time type stuff–a lot of it, I think, originated in the sheet music of the turn of the century.