My Son, the Songwriter (Age 7)

We've been listening to a lot of music lately. My two oldest kids got music cds for Christmas, and they want to play them all the time. (Yes, I am old and got my kids music cds. But that's only because cassettes and 8-tracks weren't available.)

My kids like all kinds of music. They like Justin Timberlake. They like all Disney soundtracks. They like music from kid movies, like Trolls and Sing. They like music from my era, from artists such as Queen, ELO, and Billy Joel. They'll listen to just about anything.

So, when my seven year-old son announced he was going to write a song, I didn't think too much of it. I figured it would be a nice, fun, happy song, because that's mostly the kind of music we listen to, and he's usually a nice, fun, happy boy.

I wasn't ready for the dark turn he was about to take.

He wrote the song on some index cards. He handed them to me and said, "Here, Dad. This is the song that I wrote." It took me a minute to decipher his writing, but once I did, I managed to get that the name of the song is, "Is This the End?"

"Is This the End"

It was when I turned to the next card that I got a bit of a shock. Apparently, my sweet little boy was writing a downer of a song about the end of the world. Was my happy kid suddenly turning goth?

The lyrics were:

This can be the end of the world

Is this the end, end, end?

Wow, such a downer!

This is not the kind of song I was expecting my son to write. And then, it gets even bleaker:

Is this the end of,

The end of the world?

Is this the end of this world?

It's like he was channeling Marilyn Manson or something. When did my innocent little son become so jaded?

But then, in the last line, a little bit of optimism returns:

I hope it is not.

I feel fine.

Here's the song in its entirety:

Is This the End by Buzz 

This can be the end of the world.

Is this the end, end, end?

Is this the end of,

The end of the world?

Is this the end of this world?

I hope it is not.

He tried to sing it to me. The music had a Milli Vanilli meets Motley Crue kind of feel to it. (It needs a little work.)

It's amazing the different ways your kids can surprise you. My boy has a lot of big ambitions for his life. He's always talking about the things he's going to do when he grows up. If he does even a small fraction of what he dreams about, he'll be an incredible success in life. 

But, for all I know, this might be the only song he ever writes.

I hope it is not.