h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Eldest nipper got an iPod for Christmas. He spent a few months just putting the odd bit of stuff on it as you do when you're a kid.

Meantime me and the missus have been ripping a back-catalogue of 15 years of cds, and I haven't even begun to think what to do about the 10+ years of vinyl from before that. (Blimey, if I've got over 25 years of music, how old does that make me? No need to answer that.)

A few things come together at this point:
Eldest nipper has just noticed all the other mp3s on the pc. I say 'noticed' - he always knew they were there, but has just hit that age where he's realised that there's a whole world of stuff out there.
So, over the weekend he whacked the entire contents of our iTunes library onto his iPod.
He's also aware that in the past when he's asked me or the missus what we want put on the cd player that I've steered clear of The Darkness when the nippers - particularly youngest nipper - are about.

So eldest nipper phones up tonight and the conversation goes like this:
Eldest Nipper: "I've got The Darkness on my iPod. Can I listen to it?"
Paff: "Erm, well, the thing is, there are a few questionable tracks on there, and, erm ..."
EN: "There won't be anything I haven't heard before."
P: "Yeah, you're probably right. Hmmm. Let me have a think."


So, thing is, I don't want to make a fuss, and he is 13 next week, but do I wan't him listening to 'Black Shuck', and, in particular, 'Get Your Hands Off My Woman'?

Hmmm.

Paff

I think I discovered Spinal Tap's 'Lick My Love Pump' at about that age

Yeah it's real life I 'spose. Thing is I don't remember dodgy language being quite as easy to come by when I was a nipper - dodgy sentiment, yes, but actual bad language, no.

When I get my vinyl ripped there's my relatively rare Cult 'Dreamtime Live' double album with Ian Astbury saying some unsavoury stuff to the audience from what I remember. I'll probably listen to that for the first time in years 25 years and find that he says "poo" a couple of times.

That's true enough. When I was a kid, it was rare enough to hear bad language that Derek and Clive and Kevin 'Bloody' Wilson tapes had a great currency at school, as it grown-ups didn't normally speak that sort of language. I think the first time I heard a swearword on a recorded album was on Rage Against the Machine's first album, and *that* refrain sounds fairly tame now. I never thought I'd think of Motley Crue as fairly inoffensive lads, that's for sure.

I can guarentee that at 12 he'll have heard the F word by now, if not used it, and having looked up the lyrics to both it's used in a fairly inoffensive way for a rude word (ie not directed at anyone) but the other one I wouldn't want my 12 year old to listen to and would delete it.

I don't remember having access to rude and sweary stuff until I was 13/14 when I discovered my 17/18 year old brother's porn mags. Of course I'm entirely unaffected by it.

Thanks folks.

Much as I'd love to get drawn into a conversation about good bits of swearing I heard on record as a kid (nice try Rich ), Mina's voice of reason hits the nail on the head. Yes, The Darkness's offensiveness is entirely tongue-in-cheek, but that'd be lost on eldest nipper.

I'll surreptitiously get rid of the second track, leaving the first (and a couple of other even tamer ones), so when he discovers those he'll think that's all there is to it.

Paff

And in the meantime Nipper will be sharing his new tunes with all his mates.