In The Town Where I Was Born...

[poliphilo]

I don't sing. Or maybe that should read I can't sing. Or even I shouldn't sing. I am wholly unmusical. I can't hold a tune. And in the normal course of things I don't even try

But faced with a baby I do.

First I sing nursery rhymes. I find I know the words of ever so many.

Then drinking songs like One Man went to Mow.

Then I move on to Yellow Submarine

And from there I access my cache of music hall numbers- Daisy Daisy, I'm 'Enery the 8th I Am, The Moon Shines Bright on Charlie Chaplin.

Finally I launch into the Battle Hymn of the American Republic and variations thereon- including the old RAF version with the verse that goes, "He jumped without a parachute from thirty thousand feet....(repeat three times)... And he ain't gonna jump no more".

The baby seems to like it. 

I believe my mother is responsible. She used to sing to me when I was tiny. All sorts. Including Daisy Daisy. And- my favourite- The Skye Boat Song. That's the one she used to put me to sleep with. Such a sad song. A lament for Culloden and Bonnie Prince Charlie. I'd sing it too if I knew the words.

Comments

[shullie.livejournal.com]

it's something about babies isn't it... I can't sing.. well I can and it's ahell of noise...lol

I uses to sing Daisy Daisy too and with my daughters .. and the Skye Boat song to my son, and now my grandson....

though when I just looked it up on goodle I only seem to sing the chorus and the first verse... and I miss some of thsoe words up too..

my version is:
chorus
Speed, bonnie boat, like a bird on the wing,
Onward! the sailors cry;
Carry the lad that's born to be King
Over the sea to Skye.


How the winds howl, How the waves roar,
Thunder fills the sky;
There on the shore stands our foes,
Follow they dare not try...

the offical version is:

Speed, bonnie boat, like a bird on the wing,
Onward! the sailors cry;
Carry the lad that's born to be King
Over the sea to Skye.

Loud the winds howl, loud the waves roar,
Thunderclaps rend the air;
Baffled, our foes stand by the shore,
Follow they will not dare.

and apparently there are other verses too ;)

Though the waves leap, soft shall ye sleep,
Ocean's a royal bed.
Rocked in the deep, Flora will keep
Watch by your weary head.

chorus

Many's the lad fought on that day,
Well the Claymore could wield,
When the night came, silently lay
Dead in Culloden's field.

chorus

Burned are their homes, exile and death
Scatter the loyal men;
Yet ere the sword cool in the sheath
Charlie will come again.


pity he was never everything they and the song hoped for...

I shall be singing this all day now....

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Thank you for that. I'm going to try and memorize these words.

It's a great blessing that Charlie didn't come again. The Stuarts were such a lost cause.

It's a bit like the American Civil War: the losers get all the sympathy- and all the romance- even though it would have been a disaster if they'd won.

[jfs.livejournal.com]

How did "1066 and all that" put it?

The Royalists - wrong but romantic, and the Roundheads, right but repulsive.

"The Skye Boat Song" tends to be my baby calming song of choice too. And I figure if I only sing it to those babies still unable to talk, they're not going to notice if I fluff the words.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

1066 and All That is full of wisdom.

I wonder if the the Skye Boat Song wasn't the thing that first fired my interest in history. So sad, so yearning, so mysterious! Who wouldn't want to find out what all these names- Charlie, Flora, Culloden- actually stood for- and what exactly a claymore was?

[huskyteer.livejournal.com]

My mum tells me she sang me all sorts of things, including the Beatles and Simon & Garfunkel. When I say "Aah, sweet!" she replies "I was desperate! You wouldn't sleep!"

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I expect my mother was desperate too.

Those memories- of her singing to me- must be among my very earliest.

[daisytells.livejournal.com]

In addition to folk-song lullabies like "Pretty Horses", I also sang some nursery rhymes.
I had a problem with baby talk. Since I did not have any idea of how to address a baby when I had my firstborn, I took to reciting nursery rhymes to her while I held her in my arms or on my lap. She seemed to enjoy this from a very early age. Later on I read to her from AA Milne's "When We Were Very Young" and "Now We are Six", as well as some of Edward Lear's nonsense poems, and of course Joel Chandler Harris's "Tar Baby" (in dialect). This worked so well with the eldest, that I did it with the others, and all of them have had a love for reading all their lives. Myown grandmother who lived with us, and my mother and Dad read to me, taught me nursery rhymes, and sang to me for as far back as I can remember. I guess I just passed it on.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I agree with you about baby talk. I don't really see the point of teaching a child a whole bunch of baby words that he or she is going to have to unlearn later. Much better to plug them straight into the folk tradition by singing nursery rhymes and such- and the literary tradition by reading them good books.

Milne, Lear, Harris- that's a very nutricious diet.

[aellia.livejournal.com]

I can't sing in tune,but,like you,I still warble to them.
I hope those songs never die.
And I've always wanted to sing them this.
I love the gentleness

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vrtps-SH5s

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

That's very pretty. I'd never heard it before

[daisytells.livejournal.com]

That is a beautiful song. Wish I had the voice for it!

[suzilem.livejournal.com]

That's a beautiful song (Skye Boat). I'd never heard it, so I you tubed. :-)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86egt8PDmos

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

That's a nice version.

But the comments do contain some guff. Bonnie Prince Charlie was two generations on from William of Orange. Specifically, William defeated James II at the battle of the Boyne in 1690, so ending Stuart rule in Britain. Charlie- James's grandson- made a doomed attempt to regain the throne in 1745- by which time it was being sat on by the Hanoverian King, George II.

Sorry if you already know all this :)

[ex-redrain.livejournal.com]

I never thought of Yellow Submarine as a children's song, but I can see how it would be a good one!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Yes indeed. Simple tune, nonsense lyrics, rousing chorus- it's a natch!

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

My Dad used to sing me to sleep with the Skye Boat song too, and I sang it to my kids.

Thanks for the reminder. I've just tracked down words and guitar chords and have just spent a happy 20 minutes playing it. :)

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Aw, that's splendid.

Wish I could play an instrument!

[wlotus.livejournal.com]

Children make us do things we previously swore we would never do. :-)

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

That's right. They make us flip straight over into parental/grandparental/aunt or uncle mode. :)

[baritonejeff.livejournal.com]

This post made me smile.

Also, it made me a little sad, in that slightly regretful way of some of my later-life musings. I *can* sing, and would rather have liked to have had the opportunity to hold and sooth a child of my own.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

There are always other people's kids.

My own children are distant memories now- and this is a friend's child I'm singing to. :)

[amritarosa.livejournal.com]

Oh, what you are passing on in those songs! You are exposing the child to the songs of your people (which are her people too, of course).

That's cool.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I think it's terribly important to pass these things on. To keep the culture ticking over.

Mind you, in this case it's a little more complicated. This particular child may have been born in Liverpool, but his parents are from Cameroon. :)

[amritarosa.livejournal.com]

whoops, I thought the baby was a she!

Maybe they will trade you some lullabies from Cameroon. How wonderful.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

This one's a he- but I also babysit the little girl next door. :)

[karenkay.livejournal.com]

I sing to Nanook. When I first got him, I sang to him to let him know I was in bed and he could come sleep with me. I still sing to him sometimes, and he seems to find it comforting--I think it's partly the vibration. But I also sing to him when I drive him to the vet, which is 30 minutes away. When I stop, he complains.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Who knows exactly what animals make of music- but they do respond to it, don't they? And isn't there research to show that plants grow better when you play them Mozart- or something like that?

[elegysostenuto.livejournal.com]

My little one likes celtic-types like The Skye Boat, My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean, Black is the Color, Greensleeves, etc; anything by The Beatles; Billy Joel, and old Americana: Battle Hymn, Old Man River, Amazing Grace, Old Folks at Home, Dixie, etc..

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Most of those are in my repertoire too. :)

[sorenr.livejournal.com]

My mother and grandmother used to humour me when it came to lullabies, so they sang me old renaissance folk songs before bedtime. I love having that with me always; I still sing those songs every so often when I'm alone in my flat.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Renaissance folk songs? Now that's classy!

[haikujaguar.livejournal.com]

An acquaintance of mine, another new mother, said once that she had no idea that being a mother involved so much singing. I laughed because that was my experience also. It seems to be a human thing. We like music from the day we're born!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

It's fascinating how, faced with a baby, the ancestral programming kicks in and we sing. It's not something we have to be told to do, we just do it.

[daisytells.livejournal.com]

Thanks to you - and YouTube - my folk music education is being greatly enhanced. I know a lot of American songs, especially the ones from the Southern Appalachians (which are in the Scots-Irish tradition, many of them direct steals). I so love the sound of the Celtic music. Maybe my British/Irish genes are harboring a memory?

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

The music is in our blood. And by singing to babies we're plugging them into the tradition.

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

There is the music of talking, too. People instinctively speak with exaggerated musical, higher sounds when speaking to babies:

"And WHO are YOU, little BOY? Aren't you SWEET?"

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

They do.

We have a toy xylophone. The baby likes to eat the drumstick. I wish I could play tunes on it.

[michaeljohngrist.com (from livejournal.com)]

I remember singing once to the cats Skoda and Skarlet when you first got them, to try and calm them down. I was just a kid. Ailz said something cruel about my singing and I never sang to them again. Ha!

[michaeljohngrist.com (from livejournal.com)]

I mention that because I`m surprised she let you sing to a baby- seeing as you sing no better than I.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

My singing- horrible though it is- is preferable to the noise of a baby yelling the house down.

Is anyone in our family capable of holding a tune?

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

Michael, our baby from South Korea, was cared for tenderly by his foster mother while awaiting his adoption by my son and daughter-in-law. She would carry him on her back and sing to him Korean lullabies.

When he first came to his new home, everything he had known vanished--all faces and sounds and surroundings totally different--Tara says he would sing to himself at night (a baby, not even a year old) little sounds that were like music. listening to it.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

How charming.

And a little sad.

Fabrizio makes a roaring sound and blows bubbles. I'm sure it's an attempt to approximate speech.

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