A day to reflect with the dudes
SO there we were, four dudes bombing along the rainy highways and byways as another spring storm gathered ominously to the West.
Upfront there’s myself and the pair of 12-year-old centre forwards, while the back seat belongs to the eight-year-old substitute goalie happily lost in his iPad.
With the football match called off at the last minute due to a waterlogged pitch, I was pressganged into emergency service as the designated driver for the hour’s journey home.
So what does one talk to youngsters about these days, I pondered – the disappearing habitat of the natterjack toad, perhaps, or maybe the optimum method of cooking howler monkey while trekking on Chile’s Cerro Castillo? Opting instead for inspiration from the airwaves, I reached for the radio dial only to find The Proclaimers’ hearty ‘I’m Gonna Be’ filling the car.
“I would walk 500 miles, And I would walk 500 more/Just to be the man who walks a thousand miles/To fall down at your door.”
The Rooney lookalike next to me throws his eyes to heaven, muttering: “Stupid idiot. Why not just send a text?”
OK then, so tell me the weirdest song lyrics ever, I prompt. Beckham by the door is in like a flash: “Has to be Black Eyed Peas – ‘Y’all getting hit with the boom boom/ Beats so big I’m steppin’ on leprechauns.’ Mad.”
Again throwing his eyes to heaven, Rooney counters with: “That’s stupid. Weirdest is defo Desiigner’s ‘Panda’ – ‘Panda, panda, panda’ – he just keeps repeating the same word over and over. Crackers.”
Feeling increasingly out of my depth in this trawl through the melodic mastery of the modern age, I wonder aloud how they’d rate The Beatles’ ‘I Am The Walrus’ – “Sitting on a cornflake waiting for the van to come/I am the egg man, They are the egg men/I am the walrus, Goo goo g’joob” – only to receive a pair of totally blank stares.
My effort greeted by a pair of slightly alarmed pre-teen faces, I turn to the back seat for help: “So, hey, Mr Quiet Guy, what are your favourite song words?” I ask.
Looking up half-distracted from his screen, Junior thinks a second and says: “I like the pink hair girl going backwards.” He’s totally lost me. “Stupid – he means the cider ad on telly,” his ever-exasperated older brother informs.
Of course; the advert using the classic 1950 Doris Day hit, ‘Enjoy Yourself’: “Enjoy yourself it’s later than you think, Enjoy yourself while you’re still in the pink/ The years go by as quickly as a wink/Enjoy yourself it’s later than you think.”
Out of the mouths of babes, eh? As we motored on through the dusk of a late March evening, thoughts of the dwindling grains in the hourglass was the only song in the driver’s head.