If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out
When I was in the 4th grade, my music teacher pulled me aside one afternoon and pushed a pamphlet into my hand. It was for the Pocono Boy Singers (soon to be renamed the Singing Boys of Pennsylvania), a group of young, often-beat-up, boys from northeast Pennsylvania that went to local nursing homes and community centers and sang and danced around in outfits not seen since The Music Man graced the great white way.
Because I was (and still am) a complete and utter geek, I was flattered. Someone was actually interested in my singing ability? Sure, I could carry a tune, but to be offered such a great opportunity such as this was magical.
Okay, I’m kidding. It wasn’t particularly magical, and the reason the teacher chose me instead of other kids was because I likely was the only one in the class who wasn’t out torturing neighborhood animals or lighting girls’ ponytails on fire.
But I brought the pamphlet home and showed it to my mother and asked if I could join. She didn’t want me to for a number of reasons, one of which was the fact the practice spot was over an hour’s drive from our house and another being she knew I didn’t look particularly good in a straw hat. So I didn’t join, and my dreams of barbershop quartet stardom were quickly dashed.
In reality, I think the biggest reason she didn’t want me to do it was the same reason she didn’t let me go to school wearing my clogs: she wanted to protect me. As a gangly kid whose hair was never not standing up, I didn’t need yet another nerdy thing hanging over my head.
The funny thing is, even though I have decent pitch (I can pick out who’s out of tune on American Idol well before Randy announces that a singer is “pitchy”) and I’m not a terrible crooner in my own right, I never did any organized singing after that. I was never in any of my school choruses and I never tried out for any of the school musicals. It just didn’t interest me in the least.
In fact, I don’t even really like musicals. I do, however, love singing songs from musicals, usually to Kristen as she sits there with a lovely puzzled look on her face. “That’s from the King and I,” I’ll say. “Please stop,” she’ll say. (I know she still loves me, though.)
The cats would put up with my singing for a bit, but they, not really enjoying my warbling, would start to squirm, and quickly run off when I put them down. If we had plants, I suppose they’d like it, but the only living green thing we have in the house is a mutant aloe bush/tree/Audrey II that doesn’t even need oxygen or water to grow.
But now I have a new audience. Henry.
Sure, he can get a bit squirmy and he packs quite the wallop when he doesn’t get his way, but I’ve noticed that when I hold him, his head resting against my shoulder, swaying back and forth, trying to get him to calm down or fall asleep (or both), he actually enjoys my singing. I’m not sure if it’s the vibrations in my throat next to his head or just my voice in his ear, but his cries turn to coos.
As I mentioned earlier (and to the chagrin of my sister, Rachel), Henry loves Led Zeppelin, especially “Stairway to Heaven.” I don’t even get to the rockin’ out part of the song before he’s zonked out. He also enjoys the Kinks’ “Sunday Afternoon”, the Who’s “Squeeze Box”, and the Beatles’ “Norwegian Wood.” Yes, I’m aware that the content of some of the songs are a bit risque, but what can I say. He loves the classics.
When he’s sitting on my lap, staring up blissfully into the ceiling fan my eyes, I’ll sing fun kids’ songs (ie, Teensie Weensie Spider, Apples and Bannanas [he loves the O part], I Know an Old Woman Who Swallowed a Fly), but when I’m holding him close, it’s all about rock and roll.
I’m glad that he likes music, and I hope he continues to like it. Some day, when his fingers are longer than my pinkie toe, I’ll get him a piano or a guitar or a violin or something. We’ll always listen to music around him and sing to him and with him.
And hopefully, soon, he’ll get his first red-and-white-striped blazer. It’s all that I could ever hope for in a son.
