3 ways we use music on Friday pizza nights
We don’t put music on every Friday night, but when the weather is nice and we can open all the doors up to the decks outside to create more space, that’s when we like to turn the music on.
Occasionally, we’ll put on a playlist of current songs, but we’ve found that they don’t really get the same sort of response as older music. Even our kids (who range now from 10-17) aren’t requesting the latest songs to be put on. Times have changed from when I was a teen and tracked new music so closely. (Does anyone else remember Rick Dees and the Weekly Top 40? I remember thinking that my definition of being old was not knowing what the top songs were!) Music is so fragmented and discovered in so many different ways that even popular music is less universally known!
Often, we’ve put on a Spotify playlist of Billboard top songs from a specific year and had people guess the year. It’s a nice way to reminisce about that period in our lives and remember songs that we haven’t heard in a long time. No cheating by using Google to look up a song is allowed!
Most recently, I was inspired by a great question: “What is your walkout song?” By that, it meant that if you were to walk out to a boxing ring for a fight, or onto a stage with an audience cheering for you, what would you use to get energized and ready to go? Mine was “Hey Boy Hey Girl” by the Chemical Brothers. I remember being a student, driving my parents’ spare car over to my friend’s house in 1999, the CD blaring the song out. It felt like freedom.
So, the other Friday night, we asked everyone to add their walkout song to the Spotify queue. Our 17-year-old son had a lot of his teenage friends over, and everyone got into the spirit of it. We had the best time listening to everyone’s picks from all sorts of genres. Some were super surprising, others not so much. Songs included: California Girls by Katy Perry, Crazy in Love by Beyoncé, SexyBack by Justin Timberlake, Circus by Britney Spears, Bulls on Parade by Rage Against the Machine, En Feu by Soprano (from our French guests!), and The Bitch is Back by Elton John. Maybe give this a try next time you’re wondering what music to play!
So… What is your walkout song?
