I am working on loading up an old iPod with music for my smart, picky, adorable, almost-but-not-quite autistic 8 year old to wake up to — the iPod gets slotted into an alarm clock. I’m looking for music that will wake him up in a good mood. Right now it’s a highly interactive process — I sit there and scroll through the 100 songs I have on there, start them, and he vetoes most of them, allowing a few, until we’ve heard three full songs (which he listens to intently and comments on) and he’s ready to get up. In the last few weeks we’ve been through all 100 now and there’s about 15 he’ll stand for. His favorites are some silly old Louis Jordan tunes (e.g. “Ain’t Nobody Here But Us Chickens”), the Monty Python stuff I have on there (of course), a couple of They Might Be Giants pieces (“Istanbul Not Constantinople”) and the one he requests every day, “Yoda” by Weird Al. He is, of course, a Star Wars fan. We’ve also listened to a live version of “Lola” but he says he doesn’t like it as much :rolleyes: . He has ZERO patience for anything that talks about lllooooovvvve (OOOGIE!!), which rules out even most of the later Beatles oeuvre . I have the whole The Who: Tommy album on there because he performed in a local theater’s staging of it last summer and he definitely likes that music, but, it turns out, not so much first thing in the morning.
So among other promising leads, I’m looking for more Weird Al for him. Can anyone help me nail down what’s more likely to be interesting to an eight-year-old? I’m feeling overwhelmed by the bulk of Weird Al’s output, which I don’t know well at all. I lost track of him back in the 80’s (insert grizzled-beard smilie here).
My son is smart enough to be amused by the more abstract humor in “Yoda” (e.g. “The long-term contract I hadda sign/means I’ll be making these movies 'til the end of time”) and I think he appreciates Weird Al’s clear phrasing and diction. A quick look at some Yankovic playlists tells me there’s a lot on there my kid just won’t get — he clearly doesn’t need to understand the piece being parodied, but he does need some frame of reference for the subject being inserted into the parody — for instance, I probably won’t play “Amish Paradise” for him not because he doesn’t know anything about gangster culture, but because he’s never heard of the Amish and probably wouldn’t be interested if he did. And these sings need to catch his interest; they need to be more interesting than falling back asleep. Does that make sense? I hope so.
Anyone? Anyone? Other suggestions aside of Weird Al gladly accepted, but I’m really looking to mine his work first.
“Gotta Boogie” and “Another one Rides the Bus” are both catchy and don’t require a deep understanding of anything other than nose picking and public transit.
If he likes Weird Al, and he like Star Wars, the other obvious suggestion is “The Saga Begins”:
My, my, this here Anakin guy
may be Vader someday later but now he’s just a small fry
He’s left his home, and kissed his mommy goodby
Sayin’ ‘soon I will be a Jedi’, ‘soon I will be a Jedi’
Qagdop and Aspidistra, I just played “White and Nerdy” for him over leftover pizza and he is very taken with it! “Wow, Weird Al Yankovic is a really good rapper.”
. I have the whole The Who: Tommy album on there because he performed in a local theater’s staging of it last summer and he definitely likes that music, but, it turns out, not so much first thing in the morning.
Short 'n sweet.