Mommy's Mini-mix

On my way to work this morning, I was fiddling with the Avenger's CD player (because I'm cheap when it comes to chipped and wired doodads and couldn't care less about owning an iMoneypit) and thinking of how lovely it is to have reached an age where I feel no need to apologize for the music that I endorse and enjoy. 

The music that we like can be an invisible badge. 

That badge may proclaim, "I'm easygoing and uncomplicated.  Three chords and the truth are enough for me."

It may declare,"I'm cerebral.  I like music that alienates the plebeians and sounds like math."

It can tell the world, "I'm no conformist, and I'll prove it by blasting a song that's sold 3 million copies!"

I want my invisible badge to state:  "My favorite music reminds me of people and places I've loved."
While it's on my mind, I'll take a moment to list a few of the special songs and pieces that have lifted my spirits over the years by illuminating memories of the moments in my life when they first proved themselves.  If I were to make Mini a custom mix to sew into her emotional armor, these would make up that patch:

Don't Give Up (Peter Gabriel & Kate Bush):  I appreciate that this song is not a statement, it's a dialogue.  I first heard it before I fully understood what "for better or worse" truly meant; listening to this song now, I better appreciate the encouraging character voiced by Kate.  It's an awesome illustration of how a family should encourage one another and try to boost each others' spirits when it seems that the world is closing in.

Lullaby For an Anxious Child (Sting):  I love that this lullaby is voiced in a very masculine way -- somewhere between beseeching and commanding, while empathizing with the upset child by painting a sympathetic world crying alongside her.  I always imagine that the mother is looking in on the father reasoning with a infant and laughing under her breath from behind the nursery door.

Homeless (Paul Simon):  It isn't so much the subject of this song that affects me as much as the sound of the unfamiliar language being sung.  It's easily my favorite track from Simon's Graceland album (which is no low compliment -- it happens to be my favorite album of all time), which my dad used to keep in his Geo Metro's cassette player.  It would tickle me beyond words to hear his rumbly Baptist-bass voice mumble through the lines:

Kuluman
Kulumani, Kulumani sizwe
Singenze njani
Baya jabula abasi thanda yo
Ho!


Neither one of us were quite sure what those sounds meant, but it thrilled me when he somehow nailed the whole run of 'em!  I still can't do it by ear.

"These are the days of miracles and wonder..."

Sweet Baby James (James Taylor):  When I was twelve, my parents took me and my Grandma Bennett to see James Taylor in concert at Barton Coliseum in Little Rock.  Obviously, that made me the coolest kid in seventh grade.  (Pfft!)  I didn't care.  I was socially hopeless anyway, and my parents were probably thrilled that I was into any artist other than Nirvana.

It was magical.  J.T. was the first true showman I'd ever seen, and it fascinated me that he could take a lyrically-dependent song like this, stand with his feet planted in one spot in front of the microphone and captivate every eye and ear in the house without the use of pyrotechnics or wiggly half-nude band members.  I remember that I was glad it seemed that I was the youngest person in the audience, and it felt like he was singing a lullaby to just me.

Maybe because of this song, I've always liked the name James.  That's Jason's middle name. 

We'll put that in our back pocket for another pregnancy. 

"Goodnight, you moonlight ladies...and rockabye, sweet baby (Jason) James..."

This Is My Father's World (Maltbie Babcock):  I used to sing this song with the kids in my Sunday School class.  The lady who led our music would hold up a huge illustrated book printed with the lyrics so we could mumble along with her.  I knew the song so well, I used to just look at the pretty 1970 's-style pictures of hippies and lilies and stuff and try to figure out what "music of the spheres" would sound like.  Jefferson Airplane, mebbie?

Minute Waltz (Frederic Chopin)  This was the most difficult piano piece that I could play (rather clumsily) by the end of my senior year of high school.  According to Chopin's biographers, it was inspired by nothing more than a dog chasing its tail.  That seems to be the perfect metaphor to describe my brief career as an underachieving classical pianist. 

Mairzy Doats (Drake/Hoffman/Livingston) -- Grandma Bennett used to sing this to me and enjoy the look of incomprehension on my face.  I just.  Didn't.  Get it.  Now I look forward to confusing my kids with it.

This song also makes an appearance on my favorite television show of ALL TIME, Twin Peaks.  That's how I found out that G'ma didn't make it up.

I Don't Want To Live On the Moon (Jeff Moss, as sung by Jim Henson):  Even though this is a song written for Sesame Street, it still holds weight with me as much as any other.  As an adult, I recognize my predisposition to be a chronic dreamer and an occasional wanderer.  When I heard this as a tot, I think it resonated with the corner of my young heart that blossomed into that personality.  "There are so many places I'd like to be", indeed -- but "none of them permanently."  Well put, my little orange foam friend!  Watch Ernie sing this song!

and finally:
Bulbous Bouffant (The Vestibules):  On Sunday mornings when I was a Mini-Bennett, my dad and I used to tune the kitchen stereo to Magic 105 and listen to the Dr. Demento show.  Dr. Demento was a disc jockey broadcasting from Culver City, California who spun records by pseudo-musicians like Spike Jones and Tom Lehrer and comics like Andy Griffith. He was also the genius who gave Weird Al Yankovic his first national audience.  Listening to his show was like being assaulted by a one-man band outfit being operated by a capuchin monkey jacked up on Adipex.  It was genius.

The point of this song is....nonsense.  And big hair.  And..... galoshes?

Isn't that the meaning of life, according to the religion of some isolated island off the coast of New Guinea?



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