Having a dad that grew up in the ‘80s naturally means I was exposed to some pretty great music growing up. I can remember listening to anything from Bon Jovi to Fleetwood Mac to AC/DC while in the car with him. My father and I share a love for music of all kinds, but recently, he has asked me to expose him to more current music. When I’m home with him, I’ll add songs to his Spotify playlist, but considering we are roughly 200 miles away now, that is a little more difficult. Now, I send him a few songs and like to hear his thoughts on each of them. This past week, I started sending him collections of songs with themes, the first one being current songs that either interpolate or sample songs from the ‘80s, so we can bond over both the current music and senses of nostalgia that the samples bring.
The first song I sent him was “Lavender Haze” by Taylor Swift. I’ve been in the process of turning him into a Swiftie, and I’ve been pretty successful with that journey so far. A direct quote from him is: “If it’s wrong to love ‘Lavender Haze’ by Taylor Swift, I don’t wanna be right.” Obviously, he vibes with the song and I’ve heard that it’s on his commute playlist! While this song does not have a confirmed sample/interpolation, a drum feature before the chorus is remarkably similar to the famous drum solo from “In The Air Tonight” by Phil Collins. As soon as my dad told me that he loved this song, I told him about this similarity and he loved it even more. We share a love for this song, as it was featured in my senior year marching band show back in high school, so I was more than happy to share this Taylor song with him.
Speaking of “In The Air Tonight” by Phil Collins, the next song I sent him was “Hard Feelings/Loveless” by Lorde. The latter portion of this song, titled “Loveless,” also features the same Phil Collins drum solo I mentioned earlier for “Lavender Haze.” This one was more obvious to my dad. He said that the first part (Hard Feelings) reminded him of “Heart and Soul” by T’Pau and also that it had some Peter Gabriel vibes to it. For “Loveless” he said it reminded him more of Kate Bush. I haven’t listened to much from these artists, but the whole point of this exchange of music is for me to learn more about his taste, so I will definitely be checking these out.
Next, I wanted to bring the mood down a bit (as I often do, I have a really depressing taste in music), so I sent him “American Teenager” by Ethel Cain. His direct review of it was “Ethel Cain – Teen Angst Taylor. Just enough country, but too many issues crammed into one song. I didn’t get an ‘80s vibe until the synth at the end.” He also did not catch the interpolation of the guitar riff from Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’” toward the end of the song, but I let him know and he said that he would re-listen. I think his interpretation of the song is quite interesting, I had not really found many similarities between this particular Ethel Cain song and Taylor, but I guess that is his frame of reference for popular music today. I knew going in that this song would not be his particular vibe, but it was worth a shot to suggest to him.
The last song that I sent him for this round was “Prisoner” by Miley Cyrus and Dua Lipa. This song contains an interpolation of the melody from Olivia Newton-John’s “Physical.” I was debating whether to send him this song, or “Physical” by Dua Lipa, as it has the same interpolation. I ultimately decided on “Prisoner” because I thought it was a little less obvious, and he knows Miley a bit better. Initially, he thought it sounded like “Urgent” by Foreigner, but finally understood the correct interpolation as he got more into it. At the end, he still said the slight rock aspects of the song gave a Foreigner vibe, and I can understand that.
It’s definitely interesting to see my dad’s interpretations of the songs that I sent him, and how it makes him nostalgic of songs from when he was my age. I can’t wait to send him more, and see what he thinks!
Check out the playlist below that’ll be updated with every song I send my dad 🙂
