Whenever my boys and I head off on a road trip, I set the scene with music before we leave the driveway.

The kids have come to learn that Nelly’s Ride Wit Me is usually first up.

They glance sideways at me, crooked smiles plastered across their faces, as they tolerate the overzealous child-like delight certain music brings me, internalising any would-be visible cringing to avoid hurting my feelings.

I’ve always been big on theming stuff.

It used to be their birthday parties.

Everything from the invitation design, to the party games, loot bags and cakes would stay within a very specific theme.

I threw an army party for my middle child when he was three or four (now 16).

The invitation read like an enlistment telegram in Courier font; the flipside sporting a cartoon of a pointing Uncle Sam with bold stencil style letters in enthusiastic capitals, WE WANT YOU, followed by a much less prominent ‘to join the party’.

The party games included ‘pin the medal on the soldier (my cartoon son in military uniform)’ and a ‘grenade’ throw, where the kids hurled water balloons at a board painted up as a target with a hole in the middle to aim for.

The cake was an army tank with a whole Chomp bar protruding from the front to form the cannon, mint slice biscuits as four wheels on each side, bordered by short choc finger biscuits to form the tracks, all combining for about 12 months’ worth of recommended sugar intake. Inside, it was three different shades of marbled green.

The loot bags were ‘ration packs’, filled with chocolate bullets, a mini water pistol and personalised metal jewellery dog tags for each child, among other things.

My son was even dressed in camo, with war paint on his face.

It wasn’t to glorify war or lighten the heaviness of it.

My son simply enjoyed wearing camouflage-patterned clothing at that age.

I went with it.

My kids, now all teenagers, got to a point where they stopped wanting birthday parties and were more interested in the flavour of a cake than its decorative finish.

So one of my creative avenues fizzled out when that tradition died.

But once a themer, always a themer.

When we went for a driving adventure one Australia Day public holiday, my eldest son and I curated a playlist filled with Aussie artists, music from Icehouse and Midnight Oil, to Briggs and The Herd and Dean Lewis, Amy Shark and Thelma Plum, Cold Chisel and Hilltop Hoods.

When we drove down to Werribee for a slumber safari at the zoo a couple of years ago, another customised playlist consisted of songs about animals and jungles.

On a cruise ship trip to Vanuatu last year, the songs of choice were about boating and island life.

I’ve gotta say though, hearing Hans Zimmer’s Hoist the Colours echo hauntingly from the balcony of our cabin as we looked out across the dark, swirling, 7km-deep ocean with no land in sight was probably setting a scene the polar opposite of what my music choices are usually intended.

Music is so prominent in my mind that I speak in song lyrics a good percentage of the time.

Friends (or my kids) attempting to have a regular conversation with me try to avoid using phrases from songs so as not to risk sending me into a one-(tone-deaf)woman performance and effectively signalling the end of that conversation while they wait as I butcher the remainder of the chorus.

I don’t get how someone who sings as much as I sing gets no better at it.

Isn’t practice supposed to make perfect?

I can confirm, sadly, there’s been no improvement in four decades.

Might I express with disdain that I think it’s a cruel joke to be born a passionate music lover but a wretchedly awful singer.

My youngest (14) and I drove to Echuca last month for the local airport’s annual open day.

I queued Aeroplane by the Red Hot Chili Peppers on Spotify.

“I like pleasure spiked with pain and music is my aeroplane…” the front man’s mellow and bassy voice resounded through the speakers.

I pointed out to my son, who has autism and cares little for musical poetry, that the song represented some of our favourite things, in the context of hobbies.

“Aeroplanes are my most favourite thing,” he corrected me (and he probably meant above everything, not just out of his hobbies).

“Music might very well be mine,” I said.

He then told me that was obvious because I’m “always singing” and he can’t believe I know the words to “every” song.

This wasn’t the compliment it might read like. His tone was a groan. I was not offended, rather amused, and I carried on singing anyway, because, frankly, I find it impossible to stop.

It made me wonder.

While I do know a lot of song lyrics — and make up the rest of them — is the part of my brain that is being used to store them exercising its full potential?

Might I be smarter if that space were being used to retain other information instead?

Because it’s more like a jukebox in there than an encyclopaedia.

But then I wonder, am I using more unnecessary brain power to overthink this?

I mean, it is what it is, right?

We learn best when it comes to subjects we’re interested in.

I can’t help that music captivates me.

I guess I just have to accept that someone else was made for ground-breaking, earth-shattering, life-saving scientific innovations, while I’m made for singing. Albeit poorly.

My ‘talent’ is only fit for the shower and I can’t even play a recorder, so all in all, my musical ‘skills’ are pretty useless.

But just like Anthony Kiedis, I guess I like pleasure spiked with pain, too.

My singing is a pleasure to deliver, but clearly a pain to hear.

Seymour Telegraph Google News Panels

Sunday, 18th May 2025

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