Parental warning: the cult of riding shotgun
There was this weird moment that happened at a neighbourhood barbecue my family and I were attending the other day. The sun was shining, the adults were chatting away while nibbling on platters, and there was a blur of kids running amok around the backyard.
At some stage someone picked up the speaker to change the music to something less noisy and more family friendly.
Then, a familiar bass-baritone rang out. riding shotgun . . .’’
I froze. ‘‘. . . underneath the hot sun . . .’’
It continued. My husband and I shot glances at each other. ‘‘. . . feeling like a someone . . .’’
My husband yelled out to my son: ‘‘Hey. It’s your song, mate.’’
Then two other couples shot looks at each other and muttered similar words to their kids. Then we shot looks at the other couples shooting looks at each other.
Wait, what? It can’t be their kids’ song. It’s our kids’ song.
The ballard continued. ‘‘I’ll be riding shooootgun, underneath the hoooot sun, feeling like a soooomeone.‘‘
The toddlers stopped mid-nerf gun battle and wee smirks spread across their faces.
Ladies and gentlemen, this was the moment I realised I had stumbled to some weird toddler earworm parallel universe vortex.
You see, for weeks now it has been a joke around our extended family about how obsessed our little ones, aged 3 and 4, are with George Ezra’s latest hit, Shotgun. They are obsessed with the tune, which feels like it’s on every radio station at least once an hour, and now they’ve reached the age where they’re able to make requests.
‘‘Mum! Mum! Play the Shotgun song’’ they’ll trill as they bundle in to the car after daycare. ‘‘I’ll be ‘‘I’ll be riding shotgun underneath the hot sun . . .’’
Just the other morning, the 4-year-old crawled into bed for a snuggle at 5am and no sooner had he taken his spot as little spoon, he chimed up with ‘‘Mum . . . I’ll be riding shot guuun . . .’’ and we were off for the day.
I gave up and shot out of bed in a rage knowing that if he was so energy filled to sing, there was no chance of him calmly drifting off to sleep for the extra 20 or so minutes before my alarm went off. ‘‘... feeling like a someone’’.
Another day, another George Ezra song stuck in my head from 5am.
The kids got so good at reciting the song, visitors would often be serenaded by their little duets, whether it was bathtime blues or trampoline tunes.
Their auntie videoed them in full performance flight one day and proudly shared it around other family members with the expected praise of them being tiny geniuses.
It was, for all intents and purposes, their song, and I was a bit of a proud mum knowing they had this cute little trick I could ask them to pull out, like performing monkeys, at any time.
That was until this barbecue.
I suddenly realised my little darlings weren’t as unique and quirky as I thought. ‘‘I’ll be riding shotgun underneath the hot sun . . .’’
I suddenly realised that in fact, this whole time, my children were part of some weird subliminal conspiracy that turns all those under its spell into teeny tiny little zombies that cite lyrics like a gloriously fabulous but miniature Hari Krishna movement.
And it seemed like it was at epidemic levels. The more I spoke to other parents about if their children were in to the musings of George Ezra, the more the stories emerged of their little ones taking on the British singing star’s deep throaty voice, presenting a pitch-perfect performance.
Even those who didn’t think they knew the story quickly changed their minds once I provided a (poor) rendition of the first few opening bars. ‘‘Feeling like a someone . . .’’
And so has begun an interesting discussion with other parents about the reasonings behind why this one earworm has had such a wide-reaching effect on the pint sized.
Could it be the pace of the song, the semirhyming lyrics or something akin to those sounds at a pitch that only dogs can hear?
Whatever it is, it is a phenomenon that I felt should be outed so other parents suffering from this equal parts insidious, but cute brainwashing of their children can unite in shared experience. ‘‘Feeling like a someone, a someone, a someone, someone.’’