Air Guitar

Yesterday afternoon my daughter strolled in from a day of standardized testing at school and I guess she needed to move around a bit from her day of rows and lines and #2 pencils and bubbling in answers.

After some polite greetings she hits her room and, in a rarity, closed the door.

Her stereo thumps out the F, Bb, Ab, C# chord progression of Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" followed by the pounding drums and base run and we're full-blown 1993 back there. Then we hear the oldest daughter's attempt to imitate Kurt Cobain:

"Load up on guns, bring your friends
bzzzz hmmmmm hmmmm hmmm to PRETEND
She's overboard and self-assured
bzzzz hmmmmm hmmmm hmmm a dirty WORD..."
(grunge lyrics can be a tough deal for air guitarists, but no one really knows if you're struggling with them)

Then she full-throated the chorus emphasizing words like "entertain us" and messing up the arrangement of "libido" "mosquito" "albino" and "mulatto."

I couldn't help but imagine a she was dangling her hair in her eyes and slumped over like Kurt singing into a microphone/hairbrush checking out how close she imitated him in her mirror.

How do I know that's likely what was going on? That's the same stuff I used to do when I was a teen...and it raised a couple of questions:

First, is it sick that I thought it was pretty cool my daughter is full-throating Nirvana?

And secondly, what songs did (do?) you full-throat when you're driving or no one else is in your pad.

For me: "Rock and Roll All Nite" by Kiss, "Ace of Spades" by Motorhead and "Back in Black" by AC/DC were heavy in the middle school air guitar. Now it's usually just singing along in the car, but heavy on Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and Moby.