conuly

And I've known that song a long time, but naturally I picked up a few new verses. The funniest one has to be "Oh you can't get to heaven on the BMT cuz the BMT won't BMT". I called my mom about it, given that it's a subway reference AND a letters-as-words thing, both of which I knew she'd find enjoy.

I sang the chorus as I usually do, "I ain't gonna sing this song no more". And then I thought about it. Does singing "You can't go to Heaven..." etc. necessarily imply that you think there's any possible way of going to Heaven or that one exists to go to? (Not that I care, it's a great song, very fun, but once you start asking these questions they stick in your head.)

I also taught the nieces and their friends today to sing "I wear my pink pajamas in the summer when it's hot, and I wear my flannel nighty in the winter when it's not, and sometimes in the springtime and sometimes in the fall I jump under my covers with nothing on at all!"

Yes, I get paid to do this. My job? It rocks.

When we were in California I learned that she's pretty flexible. She liked to hop through the pool. She's not great at hopping, so she held her other leg up to keep from putting it down by accident. Held it up above her head. You know that thing ballet dancers do to show off, where they tuck their feet behind their ears? They don't hop at the same time.

So today she took Sleeping Doll (a Dora whose eyes open and close) and swaddled her up in Super Duck. A pretty good swaddle, too! She's seen babies wrapped up and decided that it's just the done thing.

When I told her to fetch her shoes she put Sleeping Doll down and wandered off, saying to herself "I left my baby over there, over there, over there. I left her over there to go and... and find my shoes. I lost my baby, I lost my baby, I lost my baby, I found my shoes and I lost my baby."

She wasn't singing it, so it took me a minute to recognize what she was doing. It's this song. My goodness it's a depressing song (and I recognize that the nonsense lyrics at the end are actually misspelled Gaelic, thanks). I can't imagine what I was thinking when I taught it to her. (Actually, I really do sing it as a lullaby. Not sure if that's better or worse than "Rock-a-bye Baby", come to think.)

I was puttering around making lunch when I realized I was humming something. But what? Halfway through I realized I was singing - but what!?!? I knew not.

So I kept singing until the end of the verse... and the second... and it hit me. I was singing Lord Randal.

Except I don't know Lord Randal, although apparently I do. I'd skimmed the words yesterday while looking something different up for somebody else, and I guess it stuck. In one skimming. Weird. (Why this talent never strikes when I need it to, I don't know.)

I'm definitely singing this one to the nieces.

( And if you see a ghost... then it's most... likely a ghost )

Today I came out with "You Take The High Road" and "Bonnie George Campbell" and... oh, some other songs which, in retrospect, were all Scottish.

She's been paying attention recently, and now she asks me questions about them. Like "So, the low road is shorter, that's why you'll get there before me, right?" and "But WHY did he never return? Did he get lost? He DIED? WHY DID HE DIE? How do you know he died?" and... oh, the other day she asked a very interesting one about "Who is it that is happy?" and I said it was me, and she wanted to know who it was in the song. She'd caught on to the idea that the person singing the song isn't necessarily the speaker in the song, which is a sophisticated idea, isn't it? It's disconcerting. Ana certainly never asked, and it took her until she was five to suddenly realize that Barbara Allen isn't exactly a laugh-a-minute. (Well, it is, but only once you realize how impossibly maudlin and absurd the whole scenario is.)

Here's a question for you. A lot of songs I sing aren't in exactly in the language I speak, either because they're old, or because they're from another part of the more-or-less-English-speaking world. Like Scotland. This leads to two problems:

1. Words that don't have meaning to me, or that have the *wrong* meaning to me, such as "resigned we may be to our greetin'", to me "greeting" doesn't in any way mean "weeping", even though I know that's what the song means.

2. Rhymes that don't. This is worse than the first category!

How does one deal with that? As I see it, I have a few options.

A. I can ignore it and sing it the way I'd say those words. This option hurts my ears.

B. I can fake the appropriate accent. This is not possible, and is patently absurd.

C. I can sing it the way I'd sing it, but say those words the way the rhyme and meter demand. This just sounds silly.

D. I can try for an appropriate (and poetic!) translation into my own dialect and sing that. This is what I generally do (folk process and all), but I get this vague feeling like it's wrong and if people heard me who knew the original they'd be shocked and horrified. And then my mind throws up phrases like "cultural appropriation" and, honestly, I feel ashamed to even say this, but I was happier when I didn't know what that meant (although I *still* had those guilty feelings about changing the words).

So mostly I go with E. which is "Do option D, but don't sing the songs where anybody can really hear you other than your family", which is unsatisfying.

What do you think?

(Shucks, I don't like it much any time of year, catchy tune notwithstanding!)

Rudolph the Red-Nose Reindeer

I don't know what message you're *supposed* to get from that song (well, I have a pretty good idea...), but it's probably not any of the logical ones. Like...

1. There's no use going to the authorities when you're being picked on because they won't protect you until and unless they need you for something.

or

2. Your friends (if you can call them that) are only your friends because you're useful, not because they like you.

or

3. It's okay to bully people who are different because you'll make them be so desperate for a little common civility that they'll fall all over themselves to help you at the drop of a hat.

or

4. You should probably not bully people with useful skills. It'd be okay to pick on Rudolph if he smelled bad or something, though, because that's not helpful at all.

or

5. You can pick on people all you want, and nobody is ever gonna call you on it.

Real nice message there. And c'mon. All that talk of "Rudolph going down in history", you don't any of you think that meant they actually wanted to play with him, right? Nah, they teased him a little less for a while, then they went back to their old ways until next November when it occurred to them that they might want to be on his good side next month.

This is the same message found in many classic children's books as well. I'm thinking of Hooway for Wodney Wat, which includes the message "It's definitely okay to bully somebody so much that she cries and runs away, just so long as she "deserves it" because, well, she started it!!!!" (And where do you think Wodney learned to be such an effective tormentor? Not from his books, that's for sure. Did he think that when he learned to say his R's properly the other children would magically become friends with him?)

I had that book for a while, then donated it away because I just didn't like reading it.

So I'm very pleased to have found the Tacky the Penguin series of books. On the surface, they have the same message - everybody's similar except Tacky, and he saves the day and is hugged all around because he's just So Different. Except... the other penguins don't bully him. They clearly don't understand him, but they let him do what he wants without harassment. And in the one I just picked up for the nieces, where Tacky ends up in Africa for a while? It's shown that when he was gone the other penguins genuinely missed him for no other reason than that they liked having him around. So you get the intended message of "it's okay to be different" and "we all need a little diversity" without all the crap in the other books.

I really recommend these. I mean, I really do. They're good books, and a lot of fun, too.

Jenn thinks it's weird, but - and would that I could post the melody! - I think it's kinda catchy....


( Cut for TMI? )


I mean, I don't right now, but when I do!

*_{Or whatever the pattern happens to be}
**_{Or panties}

About one of the most successful pirates ever, who happened to be a woman. Of course, history sometimes seems to be quite full of female pirates, but still.

While we're on the cool links, here's that one about how gay civil unions used to exist in medieval Europe. I don't know how compelling this evidence actually is, but it certainly is something to think about.

There's one here about urban farms, and all the stuff involved there.

And an older one about the soon-to-be creation of synthetic life. We are living in a sci-fi age, yea verily.

Here is a personal story by a man diagnosed aspie as an adult. Nothing much new here, but interesting enough.

And here's a nifty bit on pink, blue, and gender.

And, finally, finally - the Pachebel Bedtime. I'm too lazy to embed this. GO VIEW IT, you won't regret it, even if you hate Pachebel.

Well, I was singing, Ana was making helpful hints, and periodically the baby would clap.

We'd gone through the litany, and I asked Ana anyway "Is there anything else on the bus?"

( Read more... )

And there you have it. How does one even represent that in this song, anyway?

And he slept with a mermaid one fine night, and out of this union there came three: A porpoise, a porgy, and the other was me....

How does this work, exactly? I can see how I came into this (assuming I'm human), but the porpoise and the porgy? Which one represents the tail on the mermaid? And how did the sleeping together happen? I mean, uh...? It doesn't seem to me to be a union that's all that destined for success. And is three a lot of children for one mermaid, or only a few? And why did the dad raise me (and sell off my siblings)?

Yo ho ho, the winds blow free, oh for the life on the rolling sea!

But I'm not on the rolling sea. I'm in a lighthouse. On solid ground.

I just don't get it.

I amuse myself altogether too much, I must say.

Jenn and 'dul and all were on the train with me today. To entertain myself (and, ostensibly, the children), I started singing "I had a cat, and the cat pleased me", prompting the sarcastic comment from Jenn that this song didn't have nearly enough death and dismemberment. Y'know, like most of the songs I prefer. (Hey! I like ballads! They have killing in them! Can't be helped!)

So, to appease her, I sang "I had a zombie and the zombie pleased me, I fed my zombie by yonder tree! Zombie goes braaaains! Braaaaains! Duck goes quack, quack, hen goes chimney-chuck, chimney-chuck, cat goes fiddley-I-fee."

Vampires go "Blood! Blood!", Werewolves go "Grr! Grr!", Mummies go "I would have gotten away with it if it weren't for those meddling kids!", Ghosts go "Boo! Boo!" and at this point I gave up.

But I was amused, at least. So were the tourists. I ought to charge them for their amusement - they got bona fide New York City entertainment for free! It's unfair!

Ah well.

That place has the best public bathrooms in Lower Manhattan. And it's all free :) (Take that, stupid "I'll grumble over a $2 museum pen" guy! Don't like it? Don't buy it.)

Apparently, I can play the panpipes. I swear, I had no clue.

Mind, I don't play well, but given that I've never touched one before today, that's hardly surprising.

I wonder what other instruments I'm capable of playing sans training. The harp? The violin? Bagpipes, accordian, flugelhorn? An inquiring mind wants to know!

(Be warned, I hate sharing, even with Ana, who's getting quite competent at guessing what a song is without hearing the words.)

And I've discovered something. Two sometimes.

1. In the world of lullabies-concerning-future-jobs, they all talk about what their son is going to do when he grows up. So... what did these people sing to their daughters? Isn't there even *one* about growing up, getting married, and having your own kids (the presumed occupation of all these daughters, just like they knew in advance what their sons would likely do)?

2. And why are they all featuring moonlight and such? Okay, yes, children do (hopefully) sleep at night, but... didn't these children take naps during the day? Were our ancestors so different from us, only a few generations ago? Didn't their parents feel silly singing about how late it was and the moon was shining, when it *wasn't*? I know I sure do.

In American-language prose, though I may've mistranslated parts, it not being my dialect

Should we forget our old friends, and never think about them? Should we forget our friends, and the past? The two of us have run in the hills at home and picked daisies, but it's been years since those days. We used to swim all day together in the river, but now oceans have come between us. It was so good then, we thought all our lives would be as sunny as they were in those summers, but then dark clouds came between us. But you're still my friend, and I am yours, and we can share a drink in honor of the past, because while I hope that whatever good can come from the present comes to us, our best thoughts and memories are always of the past.

So it's not really exact. I'm guessing.

I've now successfully warped Jenn's mind. More.

As you know, I have rather... questionable views on Music for Children. Namely, I love ballads and I love having a captive audience I can sing them to, so naptime = my time.

Recently, my favorite of my repetoire (other than the carols) has been Pretty Polly. So I've been singing it a lot.

And now Jenn can sing parts of it with me, and will.

W00t. I win!

Gotta go - looking up more songs to learn, sing, put kids to sleep with. Pleasant dreams, all!

Y'know, if you don't like the dirge-y quality of the normal melody. Of course, it's only dirge-y because people use it at funerals, but that's not the point.

1. Auld Lang Syne, both the original and the common versions
2. House of the Rising Sun
3. Skibbereen
4. Tramps and Hawkers
5. Star of the County Down
6. Clementine
7. The Parting Glass, but not really
8. Oh, Suzanna if you skip the chorus
9. The Eyes of Texas
10. O, Christmas Tree

This has been a public service announcement. You shall be updated with any new developments in this area. Thank you.

I've been looking at patriotic songs. Lots of them. And the more I look, the more I have to wonder...

What idiot messed up to give us the Star Spangled Drinking Song as our anthem? I mean, is that even singable? Of course not!

Consider the possible alternatives:

( This would've been longer if I hadn't gotten bored )

Sometimes, I weep for this country. No wonder we're all going to hell, we've got a sucky anthem that nobody can sing.

Yesterday, as I was sitting with Ana and Jenn, singing the Mario theme song, it occured to me to ask if, possibly, we are warping her little mind. If so, she's bound to be in good company. This looks like it was a lot of fun.