So, there we were last weekend not watching The Wire…again.
Instead my Mum was forcing me and my Dad to re-watch a performance by Rod Stewart on Strictly Come Dancing. Naturally.
Do you think i'm sexy? WELL DO YA?
The backstory here is that my Mum is mildly obsessed with Rod Stewart to the point where we have a leopard print teapot. He can do no wrong, which includes covering oodles and oodles of “American Swing Classics” etc.
He’s just released his new album, an album full of soul and blues covers I believe. Oh lovely. And so he’s on Strictly Come Dancing flailing about like an old turkey to promote this, I can only presume.
The song that he has chosen to cover is ‘Same Old Song’ by The Four Tops. Which seems harmless enough, eh Rod?
So we’re all sitting there, humming along nicely (it’s a good song, OK?) and thinking that this was a pretty good choice. Meanwhile Penny Lancaster, Rod’s ridiculously attractive and very tall wife does weird, wiggly dancing in front of him, gyrating her lovely lady hips and pointing her giraffey legs at him. It’s all fairly standard so far. But there’s only so much of that kind of thing I can take so at this point I made myself scarce.
Now the next part I wasn’t in the room for, so when I was later asked to referee this argument I did not have the whole story available to me. But I guess it went something like this:
MUM: “Who did this song orignially?”
DAD: “The Four Tops.”
MUM:” Noo, it was The Supremes.”
DAD: “No, I really don’t think so.”
MUM: “Oh, maybe it was.”
ETC.
So I was called back into the room to break it up. By Googling it.
And the song was in actual fact a Four Tops song.
DAD: “See I told you!”
MUM: “That’s what I said!”
DAD:” No it isn’t, you said it was The Supremes!”
MUM: “No, I said The Four Tops.”
DAD: :You’ve never shown an interest in Tamla Motown until HE [points at screen] started doing it. You think everything is The Supremes.”
MUM: “YES I HAVE! No I don’t!”
DAD: “I’m going to bed. [Walks off]“
MUM: [Starts singing along]
DAD: [Comes back down the stairs] “DON’T START SINGING THAT NOW. DON’T PRETEND YOU KNOW IT! It was the music of my childhood, you don’t even KNOW!”
MUM: :Oh, go away!” [Then comes into the room I am in singing "It's the saaaame ollld song..." and doing what I can only describe as the Can-Can in her leopard print dressing gown.]
Northern Soul allnighters are some of my Dad’s favourite “When I were young..” stories, so I think it hit a nerve. But it was a classic moment and one of the most hilarious fake arguments I have ever been dragged into, to solve with the internet.
Cool that you’re using this blog again, am enjoying this parental advisory series very much.
I tried watching The Wire once. Watched the first episode and told somebody I enjoyed it, and might watch another episode sometime. I was then told that The Wire wasn’t designed to be watched on a casual basis, and that the creators of the program would not want this. I didn’t watch The Wire again.
Thanks! People aren’t very vocal about this whole post-uni/living with parents lark. Mine are top class so I thought I best share my stories.
I know, I am keen to watch it back to back, but I am getting some resistance as you can tell. I think you should give it another go. I need someone to talk about it with who is as far behind as I am.