I’m on a mission to find new breakfast music. We are several weeks into the new school year, which means we have so far endured several weeks of pre-school stress, following two months off. (Two months of 24/7 kids on the one hand, but two months of not having to get them out the door by 8 in the morning on the other.)
I discovered at some point in the previous year, the antidote of music. Something relaxing to smooth the first traumatic hour of the day. However, the old favourite, the music which served us so well through the bleak winter months and the chill promise of spring, Jack Johnson, whose calming influence soothed many an early morning bunfight, is now sounding tired and old. Banana pancakes? ‘We don’t need no stinkin’ banana pancakes!’ cry the spawn.
It takes a particular kind of music, gentle yet not banal, to do the job. You don’t want to be making breakfast thinking you’re in an elevator, but at the same time you don’t want some raucous guitar romp which has the kids standing on the table strumming a tennis racket.
On Monday I tried out our CD with 24 versions of The Girl From Ipanema. On the upside, it felt like we were having breakfast in the Sheraton or some other top notch international chain hotel. On the downside, it felt like I was the waiter, the chef, the houseboy and the dishwasher in some top notch international chain hotel.
Wednesday I went for Bailero from Chants D’Auvergne, by Frederica von Stade. This is a lovely piece of music, although at six minutes, it does test you to try to get the kids breakfasted, dressed and teeth cleaned, lunchboxes made up, coats and shoes on, homework finished, spelling tests checked and backpacks on before the song ends. It’s the kind of music that would be used in a Brian de Palma movie while someone gets bloodily disemboweled in slow motion. I can imagine myself shouting at the kids for spilling milk all over the table - they’re currently running at 13 of 22 mornings since school started on spilled milk - and hurling a sandwich at them, the bacon and bread separating in slow motion in mid-air, as the kids dive under the table screaming silently, the operatic-style music filling the kitchen with juxtaposition.
Yesterday we went for Hoagy Carmichael. Sadly, Hoagy didn’t work. Ought to have done, he ought to have filled all the right criteria. However, the minute they started fighting over who got to read the back of the Rice Krispie packet, we were all doomed, and the airy songs of lazy rivers and buttermilk skies were damned. Screaming and shouting ensued, mayhem was no refuge, the kitchen was filled with anger, distrust and cries of betrayal, homework went undone, bowls of breakfast cereal were left unfinished, and not until the school playground at drop-off were words of conciliation finally spoken. Hoagy did not do the trick. In the first James Bond novel, Casino Royale, Bond is described as having a bit of the Hoagy Carmichael about him. Hoagy Carmichael is that cool. However, even the writer of Stardust, who looks like James Bond, cannot do the job of bringing calm to a family of four before school.
Next time, we invite Jack Johnson into our house in person, to sit in the corner and play guitar while the kids eat...
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