Our Groupie

It's been a very musical weekend for the Crankies.

Saturday Ainsley launched a musical mystery that finally found a solution this morning.

We had been running some errands Saturday afternoon, listening to Cincinnati's top 40 station. I had been focusing on my running around not really paying attention to the radio. We pulled into the driveway and starting unloading the groceries when Ainsley piped up.

"I really liked that one song. Did you hear me singing along?"

Sad to say I had been so focused on Saturday traffic and the cans that came loose from our bags and rolled around the hatch that I hadn't heard her singing. And the only song I could clearly remember was "Sexy Back," not because I like it per se, but because I always wonder if it's truly appropriate for me to sing along when I have Ains in the car listening closely to what's coming out of my mouth.

"What song was it?" Pleasepleaseplease not "Sexy Back."

She hummed a little something I couldn't recognize.

"Ahhh! But I don't remember the words. But I really, really like that song."

We tried in vain the rest of the weekend to figure out what song, because it really amused me that something besides a tune from High School Musical or the Miley Cyrus repertoire would capture her musical attention. I think the songs you like end up saying a lot about your personality (which is why I had such a hard time admitting I secretly love "My Heart Will Go On") and I was curious to see where my kid's tastes are heading. Later Saturday afternoon she dropped everything to inch close to the TV and watch a random Gaelic Storm concert we caught on our cable's HD music channel. It truly warmed my heart.

This morning I turned to the same top 40 channel, and since they play the same songs over and over, we heard her song that she loved so much.

"That's it!" Ainsley said. "That's the song!"

It was...wait for it...

"Disturbia" by Rihanna. Catchy, saccharine pop at its finest.

"That song gets stuck in my head," she said. "Especially that one part."

Sadly I know that one part. It's the dum-dum-dee-dum-dum-dum-da-dee-da part. That line was, I am positive, contrived by some genius music producer for the sole effect of drilling a hole into your brain and festering there to run through your conscious mind on an endless loop. Fifty years from now I could be suffering from dementia in a nursing home and hear someone go, "Rihanna!" and I will not be able to stop myself from going dum-dum-dee-dum-dum-dum-da-dee-da.

She didn't just get into radio pop this weekend. Yesterday was a big day for us; Rock Band 2 was launched for the PS3, and we would have no social life to speak of if it weren't for our weekly Rock Band jam sessions with a couple of close friends. Which is to say we don't really have a social life to speak of. Give us a break; we're parents.

Wanting to crack into the new songs on RB2, we encouraged Ains to bring her Barbies downstairs and to enjoy a concert given by her mom and dad. We usually wait until she's in bed to scratch our fake musical itch because Rock Band is just complicated enough that Ainsley gets frustrated when she tries to join us. But we couldn't avoid the siren call of the new game.

After our first set, with mom on vocals and dad on drums rockin' to "We Got The Beat" and "Livin' On A Prayer", Ainsley got up on her feet.

"Again! Again!" she said.

We did a few more sets, and Ainsley was our groupie, grooving to the beat and dancing along with each song and even keeping our audience of Barbies in line. When it was time to quit and do yard work, she was more sad than we were.

"Aw! But I want to keep dancing!"

"We will another day. Which song was your favorite?"

"The fast one!"

I am guessing "the fast one" was the Go-Gos, but I was surprised by her love of Rihanna, so who knows.

So I feel like our fake musical career is complete. Our band, Emerald Isle Raincloud (so named as an homage to Gaelic Storm and the less charming Celtic Thunder and in honor of that one Irish ancestor I found 10 generations back) has its own very dedicated groupie.