Skibidi Toilet, Guinea Pig Olympics, Raining Tacos, Watermelon Meow Meow: I'm a parent and these are the songs to keep your kids away from, for your own sanity

But sadly, we all know that they will ignore all that and charge aurally headlong into music that can barely be described as such. It’s always happened, and no doubt always will. As the dad of a five-year-old and a seven-year-old, here are my recommendations of tracks, that you never want to allow your children to realise exist. Months of earache will ensue.

This list is by no means exhaustive - Steve’s Lava Chicken from Minecraft was a close contender, as were many others. But for now, lie back and...

Guinea Pig Olympics - Parry Gripp

I’ve no idea of the background of this song - was it written to fit a video, or vice versa? - and I don’t want to. I have nothing against mild-mannered guinea pigs, but this is an earworm par excellence that will have the insistent “Guinea Pig Olympics - Guinea Pig” refrain echoing round your head for days on end. The only mercy is that it’s less than a minute long.

Farts in my butt - Lil Big Stack

Proof of the rule that just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should. For a long time I was convinced that AI was generating songs instantly depending on what mild profanity the children shouted at Alexa, but sadly it turns out adults have written ‘songs’ to capitalise on it, and unsurprisingly you can find this on an album called Toilet Time 2. Everyone involved should be ashamed of themselves, and go away and read a book.

Peaches - Jack Black

It’s from a Super Mario theme, but hearing Jack Black mugging and gurning over a tedious piano line over and over again about his love for a video game princess is not for the over-11s. Game over.

Happy Birthday KAKA - DJ Hari Surat

I have no idea how this came to my children’s attention or algorithm. It may have been after they learned - to their joy - what caca means in French, and then started applying it to other areas of life. Either way, this pedestrian piece of electro often rings out across a house if the Alexa is left unlocked, and pops up on Spotify random picks. I’ll happily never hear it again. But I flag it up to inflict torture on others.

Gummy Bear Song

This has been around for a while. It doesn’t improve with age, is all I can say.

Raining Tacos - Parry Gripp

Yep, him again. More catchy nonsense, which means nothing, and becomes even more frustrating when it leads your children to demand to eat tacos for tea, only to declare that they don’t like them. It uses the same much-imitated chord sequence as Pachebel’s Canon in D which somehow makes things worse.

Skibidi Toilet - Lil Big Stack

One of the many iterations of Skibidi Toilet: nobody over the age of 16 knows what skibidi means, and this track won’t help, seeing as it is just the words “skibidi toilet” repeated over and over. Catnip for primary school children, an understanding of what drove van Gogh to do what he did for the rest of us. If you like it though, make sure not to miss Skibidi Fortnite. You can probably guess the lyrics…

Watermelon Meow Meow - Imagination Movers

Actually, OK, I quite liked this at first. It’s the right side of absurd, and the video is also funny. But it’s exactly the kind of thing that sends you over the edge after repeated listens, especially when your kids will only answer questions - even tedious ones like “have you packed your school reading book” - with the words “Watermelon Meow Meow”.

If you are maniac, you can find these as a Spotify playlist here.