Rock-A-Bye, Baby

As we get closer to the birth of the baby, I’m faced with one of the final item to attend to: the soundtrack that will be playing when the child arrives on planet Earth. The SLF has packed her things, the home nesting activities have swelled, and we’ve even taken the obligatory hospital classes with other expecting parents.
So why am I dragging my feet on the music? Obviously, this should be my forte, but the magnitude of the event has left me with a strange sense of writer’s block (or “compilation block,” as the case may be).
Even the minute details are, strangely, an excuse for procrastinating.
I’ve been debating on whether or not to go “old school” and do a cassette compilation, complete with album art. Not only would it be pretty cool to revert back a little for the event and demonstrate a weird sense of nostalgia into the whole thing, I’d avoid such annoyances as the cd skipping or, worse yet, the hospital’s cd player not even recognizing the disc.
At the same time, the cassette is (obviously) not a stable format either and it’s not a very “permanent” means of securing the memory. I don’t anticipating spinning the thing over and over, but it would be nice to have my own little keepsake for the event.
No. We don’t plan on taking the camcorder in the delivery room.
This is all small change compared to what will actually be on the compilation. The only instructions I’ve been provided with are “Put something on there that I like.” Which is going to be a challenge in itself. Having cleaned out the SLF’s car recently and, as a result, taken inventory of her entire music collection, I can say without hesitation that there’s no fucking way that 95% of the shit that I came across will be allowed in the delivery room either.
So I put my foot down, noting the absurdity of trying to accommodate her simple request and priding myself on being the resident music “expert” in our home. I changed gears and then went about an approach of what “style” of music she would like to hear while enduring excruciating labor pains.
“Something relaxing.” was her obvious reply.
“Slayer?” I offered.
“No, honey!” was her quick retort.
The thing is: I’m not going to be satisfied with the mere guidelines of “relaxing.” I want the shit to be memorable. And for me, memorable sometimes doesn’t equate with relaxing.
Ultimately, the entire idea is a self-serving concept that won’t make a world of difference to the new arrival. The little one will have no concept of the music playing and, probably, only be thinking “Holy shit, I just dropped twenty degrees after moving from a liquid environment to this strange new world of sensory overloads! Wah! Wah!”
And the other thing I’ve got to consider is that, no matter what I choose, there’s the possibility that the kid will think the song sucks when I play it for them later in life.
But I’ve got time to address issues like music appreciation.
My time for actually compiling the music for me to discuss is quickly running out.