Shane macgowan children

When I was a kid, in those days before streaming services, my dad would insist on playing the oldies station every time we were in the car. At the time, it drove me nuts, but later I realized he had given me a great gift: an effortless and intimate knowledge of every foundational hit of the rock-and-roll canon.

So when I became a dad myself—belatedly, one might say, at age 45—I spent some time thinking about what kinds of music I could inflict on my daughter. They say the songs you introduce to a child as a baby stay with them for the rest of their lives, so it felt like an important choice.

Being half-crazy, I chose two prickly, angry rebel songs to include among the more customary bedtime tunes: Bob Dylan’s “The Times They Are A-Changin’” and the Pogues’ “Navigator.” You already know all about the former, I assume, so I won’t say much about it except to mention that it still gives me a contrarian thrill to sing lines like “Come, mothers and fathers throughout the land / And don’t criticize what you can’t understand / Your sons and your daughters are beyond your command /

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