Rewind Barney for the 16th Time.

January 15, 2007 – 10:37 pm |

*eta: If you came here via a search for some incarnation of “popular songs about parenting” you can go straight to the list we compiled, you can even skip the list and go straight to the iMix we created from the list, or you can continue reading this post to learn about how and why we made the list.  The links repeat below.    

If I try, I can remember the days when every starry-eyed romantic love song and every angst-filled power ballad about breaking up seemed to have endless application in my life.  Back in high-school I could cruise around in my bronze 1974 Chevy Vega, crank the radio and ’suffer’ right along with Poison.  Yes, I could agree, every rose really did have its thorn.  Back then, and for awhile after it seemed, love really did stink… and bite … and hurt/burn/wound/scar.

Now, though, as I drive my minivan (interestingly, still in an almost bronzy hue) through my happily married mom life, my day-to-day concerns and thoughts tend more toward the “should junior go to half-day or full-day kindergarten?” variety and less toward the “why hasn’t the non-committal musician boyfriend returned my seventeen phone calls?” variety.  And I just can’t identify with brooding pop songs with quite the same fervor I did back then.

So I got to wondering … I know they exist, but is there a LIST of the great songs that contemplate the sweet, and the bitter, emotions of the parent?

After tiring my googling fingers in an attempt to find such an inventory, I enlisted help from Formerly Almost Fabulous and children’s media blogger Amy Davis, and we set out to make our own list of all the best popular songs about parenting.

The early choices seemed loosely divisible into two categories: The Songs For the Children - the advice, the lullaby (often aptly and conveniently named “Lullaby”), or the expresssion of the parent’s deep and abiding love, and The Songs For Us - the songs that sometimes sadly explore the shifting paradigm of the parent and the fun ones that dare to say “Wow, I think I used to be cool - what happened?”

Of course, many a songwriter has implored the collective body parent to do it better … “Fathers: Be GOOD to your Daughters!”  “Teach the Children Well,” “Children are OUR FUTURE … let them lead the way.”  But, we thought, we get enough of people telling us how to parent.  We left those out.

And, of course, there’s no shortage of tormented parent blaming ditties, and a few sweet expressions of gratitude to the parents, but that seemed another list entirely.  We tried to focus on songs more or less contemplating the good and the bad of life as a parent.

Once we compiled the list, we thought about ranking them, but how do you compare Everclear’s supposition that all the porn stars live in the suburbs to a sweet pop lullaby like the John Lennon-penned Beautiful Boy?

So, we simply give you our list, and a word on our personal favorites…

The Mommy: Call it cliche; call me sappy.  Mock me if you will.  But don’t even pretend you don’t bawl like a baby when they play Butterfly Kisses for the father/daughter dance.

Formerly Almost Fabulous: Stacy’s Mom from Fountains of Wayne.  Because it’s fun, and Fountains of Wayne are a little bit cool.  And while I realize it’s ridiculous to really care too much about it, I still want to be a hot mom.

The Lovely Mrs. Davis:  The first time I heard Bowling for Soup’s 1985 I was sitting in a Dairy Queen parking lot with my husband while our son slept at my parents’ house.  We both felt a huge rush of nostalgia and an immediate connection with the song, and I’ve loved it ever since.  Other favorites of mine are John Hiatt’s Georgia Rae, Ben Folds’ Still Fighting It, and Five For Fighting’s 100 Years - that ultimately sappy song from Chase credit card commercials.

Finally, because we aim to be helpful, you can find most of these songs in an iMix we made just for you - we called it Mommy Tracks: Songs of Parenting.

Now it’s YOUR TURN…  What did we miss?  What are your favorites?  What gets you crying in spite of yourself every time?

eta: Based on comments here and elsewhere many songs have been added, and we hope you’ll continue to add more and tell us your favorites in the comments.***