On… Disco

I have two little boys, aged two and four. They like cars and trucks and airplanes and fire engines and police cars and ambulances and baseball. And manicures and disco.

I know. I know. But they just do. They don’t have any preconceived ideas of gender or whateveryouwannacallitIthoughtwedidnthavelabelsanymore. They just like what they like. Errol’s favorite color is ‘red glitter’. Ned’s favorite color is ‘bloooooo’ but that might only be because it’s the only color he can say. (Both kids were/are late talkers. It’s all grunts and clicks around here for the first few years, like a tiny ginger version of The Gods Must Be Crazy.) And the only music they like is disco. Full on, shake your groove thang, point at the sky DISCO.

Now, Fox and I are ever-lasting fans of all music of the indie-rock persuasion, so this discovery has been tough on us. We used to be able to play the Lumineers basically on repeat and they didn’t really protest, because, you know, they were too tiny and helpless. But for the past year or so, if we played the Lumineers (or Jet or the Kaiser Chiefs or The Cure or Passion Pit or LCD Soundsystem or Mass Gothic or Sleigh Bells or Hozier or Bastille or anything else), they both would put their fingers in their ears and yell “NOooooooooOOO” until we turned it off. For a long time the only – the ONLY – song Errol liked was ‘Everything Is Awesome’ and it would STILL be his favorite song if I hadn’t told him that my iPhone lost it. I could get him to dance to my favorite song, but only by giving him chocolate when he did, in a sort of Pavlovian training effort, but Ned still hated it. So – and THIS is tragic – we just didn’t listen to music until they were in bed.

But then a few weeks ago, during my little Everybody Wants Some binge, I played Bad Girls by Donna Summer. And they LOVED it. Errol sang it to himself all day afterwards, while playing with firetrucks. It was so adorably camp.

So then I played Daddy Cool by Boney M.

Then Macho Man by The Village People.

Then Hot Stuff by Donna Summer.

Then It’s Raining Men by The Weather Girls.

Then Angel Eyes by Roxy Music, which might not be strictly disco, but I got away with it.

Then I remembered The Last Days Of Disco, which is a fantastic movie (my friend Caroline will read this and text me ‘that is a TERRIBLE MOVIE what are you TALKING ABOUT PUT DOWN THE CRACK PIPE’, but she is incorrect and I am not even HOLDING my crack pipe), and I played More More More by Andrea True.

And then Love Train by The O’Jays.

And then Oogum Boogum by Brenton Wood.

And everybody was happy.

 

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2 thoughts on “On… Disco

  1. Katie

    At the nail salon I go to, I met a dad and his young son many years ago, the boy must’ve been 3 or 4 and I think now he’s like 8 or 9 (they still frequent the salon). I used to be appalled that the little boy liked to get color nail polish on his nails, and to humor him I guess, the dad would play along and also get color nail polish. Usually, this little boy would pick out a color for himself and one for his dad. Well, they still get manicures and pedicures but no longer color polish. The boy doesn’t like it anymore the dad said. I had this preconceived notion that boys just weren’t supposed to do certain things. This dad taught me that by letting his son just be, he just was himself. Now, the boy brings toy cars with him, has a little girlfriend and a big crush on Megan Trainor.

    Reply
    1. GemmaBurgess Post author

      I love this!! (I’m sorry I don’t know how I missed your comment for so long!!) I think the same will happen to E… xx

      Reply

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