At the end of March, our 22-year-old daughter, Paige, moved back into our recently emptied nest. She had been living in Boston and she plans to attend law school in the fall and wants to save some money.
In case you have been entirely out of touch with the world lately, it is extremely expensive to exist in this country right now. With the rising costs of food, rent, healthcare and gas, we’ve backed young people into a corner, and many young adults are now moving home with their parents as a simple economic solution.
So before Paige hurries off to Rutgers in August for the next stage of her education, she decided to live with us—and the Existential Pug—for free, as opposed to paying an exorbitant rent for a cracker box apartment in the city.
All of this has been a gigantic editorial info-dump as I approach the real topics of this column, which are democracy and playlists and morning commutes.
Paige got a job working as a full-time substitute at the high school where I teach, covering classes for one of my colleagues who will be out for the rest of the school year. So each morning, Paige and I ride into work together, which is roughly a 25-minute commute from Manchester.
And as soon as Paige was hired, we immediately knew that music in the car was going to be an issue.
Admittedly, I have the tendency to be a radio fascist when I’m driving, meaning my passengers have the option of either listening to my music—which is almost all rock and roll and electric guitars and driving drum beats—or they can listen to 98.5 FM, The Sports Hub.
However, my daughter proposed an idea that I found amenable, and it also began easing me away from my totalitarian tendencies. Let’s face it, folks. I’m not getting any younger and being a 24/7 curmudgeon is exhausting.
So Paige made a Spotify playlist that I could also edit and add my own songs. So we got to work adding our music, and now “The Graziano Morning Commute” playlist has evolved to seven hours and 16 minutes of songs that are played randomly—and democratically—as we reach for our separate travel mugs in the center console of my CRV each day at 6:45 a.m.
For the first week, I kept hoping that my songs, and my songs only—Neil Young, Deer Tick, the Dead, Ike Reilly, etc—would play because I’m selfish.
But then a strange phenomena started to occur.
While walking through the hallways in between classes one day, I noticed that I was humming Taylor Swift’s “August.” In fact, I really like the song. While you’re probably never going to find me at a Taylor Swift concert, dousing myself in glitter and handing out name bracelets, some of her music is really catchy.
I had also been living under the misconception that Gwen Swefani finished making music when No Doubt broke up in the ’90s and she married Gavin Rossdale from Bush. I was wrong. And if I’m still being honest, I have listened to “Sweet Escape” when my daughter has not been in the car.
Then there is Olivia Rodrigo. As the kids say, she just keeps dropping bangers. The other day, I was in the bookroom—thankfully alone—when I started singing “so american” aloud.
And don’t even get me started on Rhianna—chef’s kiss.
So if there’s a lesson to be gleaned from all of this: Give democracy a chance. Get out of your comfort zone and try something new, try to be open-minded and accepting of the things that you might not completely understand, or you might not know that you like.
And if you don’t like Lupe Fiasco, you’re doing life wrong.
Contact Nathan Graziano at ngrazio5@yahoo.com