Lately, the boys and I have been struck by a critical case of laziness. Instead of riding our bikes into school, I’ve been driving them. It’s not so bad, though. They like all sorts of music, from Styx to Fun to Bob Marley, and we play it as we ride in.<\/p>\n
The other day, I tried to introduce them to Peter Gabriel. I put on So<\/em> for the morning ride, and immediately joined in the singing.<\/p>\n Red Rain is coming down.<\/em> Have you ever suddenly realized that you were the only one singing? Yeah. that was me. My oldest son was reading a book, and his little brother was drawing.<\/p>\n “Don’t like it, huh?” I asked. I probably shouldn’t have started with Red Rain, but I hadn’t really thought about what the first song on the album was.<\/p>\n “No, no,” my oldest said. “It’s great.”<\/p>\n “Yeah,” his brother echoed. “Really great.”<\/p>\n Nothing like being patronized by a couple of elementary schoolers. “Okay,” I said. “I’m sure you’ll like this one.<\/p>\n You could have a steam train<\/em> “Oh yeah.” my oldest said. “Much better.”<\/p>\n “Wait,” I said. “We’re almost to the good part.”<\/p>\n I want to be your sledgehammer! Why don’t you call my name?<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n “See?” I said. “How can you not like that?”<\/p>\n No answer. They were back to reading and drawing.<\/p>\n “Fine.”<\/p>\n As we pulled into car line, I powered down the windows, cranked up the stereo, and blasted Big Time.<\/p>\n The place where I come from is a small town\u00a0<\/em> “Da-ad!” my oldest said, clearly embarrassed.<\/p>\n “What? We always crank the tunes in car line.”<\/p>\n “Yeah, but. . .” He gave me his significant look: head tilted forward and to the side, eyebrows raised.<\/p>\n The problem, I suddenly realized, wasn’t the song. It was my singing.<\/p>\n “Fine.” I turned the CD player down low, took a deep breath, and put two decades of repressed 80’s into the loudest singing I could manage:<\/p>\n I had enough, I’m getting out He slapped his forehead with his palm and shook his head. His little brother burst out laughing.<\/p>\n Next week: Bon Jovi.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Okay, so this tale may prove that I am the absolute worst parent in the world… but it sure was fun!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[118,120,119],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2026","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daddytales-c","category-daddytales-embarassing","category-daddytales-funny"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6DpYi-wG","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2026","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2026"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2026\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nRed Rain!<\/em>
\nRed Rain is pouring down, pouring down all over me.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\n If you’d just lay down your tracks<\/em>
\n You could have an aeroplane flying<\/em>
\n If you bring your blue sky back<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\nThey think so small, they use small words\u00a0<\/em>
\nBut not me, I’m smarter than that,\u00a0<\/em>
\nI worked it out\u00a0<\/em>
\nI’ll be stretching my mouth to let those big words come right out\u00a0<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\nTo the city, the big big city.
\nI’ll be a big noise with all the big boys.
\nSo much stuff I will know!
\nAnd I will pray to a big god, as I kneel in the big church…
\nBig Time!<\/strong><\/em><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n