“Daddy! Yaah!” The urgent joy in (3yo) Murray’s outburst was obvious.
I adjusted the rearview mirror down to have a look. The grin on the kid’s face was absolutely ear-to-ear…but you could only see it between the wild, rhythmic bobs of his head.
Wait…surely this wasn’t related to what we were listening to, right? As part of the girls’ ongoing musical education, I’d been spinning Iron Maiden’s “Hallowed Be Thy Name”, and what had just gone by was the dramatic stop after the first anthemic guitar figure, at 1:37 on the timeline, into which jumps Bruce Dickinson’s belted-out a cappella first verse…wonderfully dramatic, really, but of course that’s me talking, not the kid, right?
But his sisters both confirmed it: the boy was actually headbanging.
I wish I could have captured what I saw: whatever it was that moved him–and I swear, based on the timing alone it must have been that big changeup and Dickinson’s delivery at the first verse that did it–my just-turned-three-year-old was all-in and ready to rock. When I asked him about it later (“Murray, did you like that music we were listening to?”), he nodded vigorously and said again, “Yaah!”.
Well, all righty then. I might have to scare me up a copy of the “Maiden Alaska” bumper sticker I’ve seen around here a few times.
As a point of order, the girls (9yo and 6yo) really seem to be digging it as well; neither quite have the words for it but I think they like the galloping rhythms, the neoclassical writing and orchestration, the operatic vocal style..and the energy. Bless them both, they seem to like a lot of what I’ve put in front of them so far, but even among the favored set there are a few names that they seem to go out of their way to request, in a way they don’t do for most others. The biggest ones seem to be Sam Bush, Weird Al, Yes…and lately it seems that Iron Maiden may be shaping up to join that short-list as well.
Very well, then, kiddos. For what my ear is worth, you could do much worse. And so it seems appropriate to bookmark “Hallowed Be Thy Name” here, to mark the occasion.
So 1982…and yet pretty timeless as well. 🙂
Craftygrass 