Let’s Sing a Song About…
My mother shared with me her gift of turning everything into a song. One word or phrase will start a tune in her head. She usually takes the words and makes up her own songs to go with it. But for me, words will trigger memories of songs I already know, and they come pouring forth from my mouth.
Memory has never been an overwhelming feature of Mom’s brain, while I still remember useless and meaningless things like my grandmother’s phone number from when I was six and my phone number and address from when I was nine. She has the gift of musical creation, while I have the gift of regurgitation.
So lately, my musical memory trigger has been firing, and I’m singing funny songs my parents sang while I was growing up, like “Zombie Jamboree” and Tom Lehrer’s “Be Prepared.” And yesterday I found myself listening to Tom Lehrer’s That Was the Year that Was
The album opens up with a song called “National Brotherhood Week,” where he jokes about people trying to force themselves to get along with each other for a whole week, to the tune of “High Hopes.” Let’s all sing along, shall we?
“Oh the Protestants hate the Catholicsand the Catholics hate the Protestants,
and the Hindus hate the Muslims
and everybody hates the Jews.”
But we’ve got high hopes… At least we can laugh about ourselves. And sing.