My Three Favorite Songs

So good that my kids don't care when I sing along.


1. American Pie, Don Mclean. 




They say it's the anthem of a generation. So be it, then the generation is mine. Don McLean once said American Pie means "I never have to work again, if I don't want to." Of course, there is more than that. Other McLean classics not to be overlooked include Crying, Castles in the Air and Vincent (Starry Starry Night). The man knew how to draw from the world around him and paint with words -- a seemingly simple yet mostly impossibly complex task.

2. Brick in the Wall, Pink Floyd.



This has always been a favorite but the song has taken on special meaning for me as a parent (currently of high school, middle school and elementary school students). I play it for inspiration whenever I am preparing to wrangle with a member of the school board, read the riot act to a school administrator or disabuse a teacher of the notion that there is anything sufficiently common and standard about the many diverse children under their tutelage to justify adherence to a common core regimen. 

This version is performed by Pinky and the Floyd, a fabulous tribute band here in Bozeman. I mean, there are what, thirty-five or forty thousand people in town, and that much talent? They are backed up by the Bozeman High School choir which performs this particular song with gusto you can only get with a decade or more of frustrating experience in the public school system. I think our eldest daughter's piano teacher is somewhere on the stage. If you look carefully, you can see the back of my head (with the open program to the right of our oldest two girls and exchange student) at seven seconds into Pinky and the Floyd's promotional video. Our kids' guitar teacher says he won't go see Pinky and the Floyd because he knows they are so good he would want to join the group and might never try to leave Bozeman again.

3. Tuesday Afternoon, Moody Blues.



It's from  the album Days of Future Passed. Best known from the album is Knights in White Satin, but I did not need to get there. I fell in love earlier in the day.

Let's finish with some more Pinky and the Floyd.