-One freak’s commentary on song (or artist) a week-
Growing up is an interesting phenomenon, and one I think many of us shove into some dusty back corner of our consciousness. A great deal of growing up happens during two incredibly strange years of our lives—of course I’m referring to middle school.
We all lived it, but in my particular line of work I watch it happen all over again, every day. As I observe my eighth grade students struggle to develop a personal identity, I relive a good deal of my own growing pains. When I was in middle school, life was the pits. I was tiny, awkward, mangled with braces, and extremely pre-pubescent. Middle school was cool for the kids that hit their growth spurts and started getting hand jobs and smoking weed. Middle school was not cool for the kids like me—the ones with high voices and ill-fitting clothing and dorky haircuts.
When everything is in turmoil during these years, kids don’t even have the slightest idea of which way is up. Their internal compass is spinning like a gyroscope and their hormones are rifling through them at the speed of sound. “Cool” is not even a thing, because what middle school kids think is “cool” is universal, and generally spawned from the television box. Middle schoolers are the demographic that actually watched TRL. This is why when I put out a “Request Box” for the middle school dance I DJ’d last year, 84 of my 207 requests were for Lil’ Wayne songs. Middle schoolers are a robotic army of marketed and calibrated American clones, and as a youth I was no exception to this rule.
It takes an incredibly individualistic child to hold opinions that vary from the pack—all the ridicule and schoolyard allegiances strongly discourage any thought deviation. Rebellion is often in vogue as well. For these reasons, most kids in middle school “hate” whatever it is their parents “like.” Parents are “embarrassing” and “old” and “lame.” My father was completely conscious of this, and he seemed to relish the opportunity to feed my growing neuroticism. He got a real kick out of doing crazy things while I was trying to impress my friends with my “teenage aloofness.” One scenario that he enjoyed exploiting time and time again involved blaring his music in the mini-van. In particular: Fleetwood Mac.
My dad is a heavily-mustached, Fleetwood-Mac-box-set-owning, mother fucker (wow, I don’t believe I’ve ever used that phrase so literally). When it was his turn to pick me and my friends up from our bowling league (I’m from Buffalo, what do you want?) he couldn’t wait to “crank the tunes,” as he liked to call it. The scene went a little something like this:
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-October, 1998-
-My father pulls up in front of the bowling alley in our grey Dodge minivan-
-We get in the car, sans iphones or ipods or iearplugs-
-We wear Rancid and Corrosion of Conformity and Pearl Jam T-shits-
-We are teenagers-
-We have attitudes-
DAD: Hey boys! How was bowling?!
BOYS: Eh.
-Awkward silence-
DAD: Say boys, how bout a lil’ Fleetwooood?
BOYS: Ugh……..
-Cue Stevie Nicks-
-Cue my dad head-bobbing and tapping the steering wheel-
-Cue my embarrassment-
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Life could not have been worse during those brief-lived moments. The anxiety I experienced was comparable to that of trying to leave 1st period math class while hiding a pesky unwanted boner. I knew I would hear about “Fleetwood” for the next two, maybe three, weeks. So somewhere within my wiring, Fleetwood Mac became associated with a “real drag.” I stared out the window of that minivan and wondered why my dad tortured me by constantly playing them in front of my friends. I wondered how he could seriously like that band. They sounded so… well-produced. And happy. I just didn’t get it. I, Smith, swore I would always hate Fleetwood Mac.
Fast forward: It turns out, I am more like my father than I ever imagined I would be. I now sport his trademark mustache. I now am “old” and “lame.” I now enjoy embarrassing children. And this past Saturday, as I drunkenly danced to the A-side of Rumours at a friend’s party, I laughed at how silly my hatred of Fleetwood Mac had been. Air-drumming on a 72-piece kit along with Mick Fleetwood, I reveled in the shimmering 70’s pop of my father’s favorite rock band.
What have I become? A lame-wad? No. I have become an adult. One with opinions that are no longer guided by the opinions of those around me. One with no shame. One who will someday relish the opportunity to embarrass children of his own.
Today, I could have talked about Fleetwood Mac and what they’ve accomplished and their incredible live shows and their dramatic inner-band wife-swapping and yada-yada-yada, but I somehow felt this exploration of youthful rebellion was more apropos.
I now present you with a handful of jams from an eternally-listenable band.
This one’s for you pops. Turns out the old man ain’t so lame after all.
Quite awesome, Friend. I don’t know if I’ve said it around you, but I’ve been subscribing to this mantra for a few years now: “The more you grow up, the more you like Fleetwood Mac.”