If music be the food of love...

4 weeks left and it’s time to start focusing on all the important things – such as what music to play the baby in the womb so that we can calm him down with it later and, more importantly, so that he comes out with the right history of contemporary music embedded in his subconscious. In fact, I’d like him to come out of the womb humming something from the Velvet Underground (perhaps ‘Stephanie Says’ which would get him going in the right direction from day one).

I’ve been selecting a few choice albums for him to become accustomed to now, among them the new Nina Simone collection, Bob Dylan (‘Blood on the Tracks’) and behind D’s back, John Martyn’s ‘Solid Air’ (D hates John Martyn). Next I think will have to be something from Leonard Cohen, some Doors, some Kate Bush or The Clash (here’s a party trick: putting one’s baby to sleep to the strains of ‘Guns of Brixton’.)

Here’s the problem though – where does it end? The Velvets, Nick Cave, Hendrix, Blondie, Nick Drake, Syd Barrett, Billy Holiday, Chet Baker, Massive Attack, Radiohead, Janis Joplin, Nirvana, Johnny Cash, Bird, Bowie, Tom Waits, Townes van Zandt, Patsy Cline… the list is too long, how can you leave any of them out?

And, what about Mozart? Vivaldi? Elgar? Rodrigo? Beethoven? What about Allegri’s Miserere? How can I face my brother if he’s not a Steely Dan fan by the time he’s 4? How can I face my father if he can’t whistle the Goldberg variations?

Worst of all is knowing that the music he's REALLY going to be most familiar with is the opening theme tunes to 'CSI' and 'House' and besides which, by the time he's two all he'll want to listen to is 'The Wheels on the Bus' and 'The Cat Came Back' 100 times a day and that all this careful planning will be for nought.

Still, while it's not on a par with attaching speakers to my belly and playing him taped readings of Plato's Republic, somehow it seems important...

Suggestions on the back of an envelope please.