Ironic Jukebox

The kids I babysit for have some hardcore music tastes. They are three and seven and when we drive around they prefer listening to a new alternative rock radio station in my town that plays Puddle of Mudd and Nirvana. Their favorites are songs that vaguely mention suicide or self-mutilation or the devil. They head bang, a lot. They like Sonic Youth and the Eagles of Death Metal. But what they like the very best, like everyone else in the world it seems–because this song is the musical equivalent of crack-cocaine–is Peter Bjorn and John’s “Young Folks.”

The scene is as follows, we head up to my house for a Thursday-night movie watching/pizza eating good time, and they call for the iPod. They demand “Young Folks” immediately; and, because I like peace and quiet and happiness, I put it on. I start whistling (a scary sight, for when I whistle I look like an old woman who has dislodged her dentures–I whistle with my bottom lip mainly). The baby makes a whistle face and tries very hard to make sounds come out of that whistle face. The seven year old whistles too, and we all move our heads back and forth, at first controlled, like metronomes, but then we speed it up to a point of frenzy that makes me feel like we will bang them into the windows or shake our brains loose. But one listen is never enough. We listen to the song five, six, seven times on the twenty minute car-ride to my house. It never gets old–to them. But to me…let’s say I might just live a happy life if I never heard that song again.

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What is it about “Young Folks” that makes people want to hit repeat? Why does this song, through its various uses in advertising campaigns, induce us to buy and be happy with our purchases? Why did the three year old ask me to sing her “Young Folks” as a lullaby just a few night ago? It’s insane; the world may never see a mass musical brainwash like this ever again.

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