Friday, October 20, 2006

Sing for the Moment

Over the years, I've logged many, many hours singing songs to kids at bedtime. (Luckily, they're not fussy about the quality of the singing.)

Now while I've sung my share of "Hush Little Baby Don't Say a Word" and "Rock-a-Bye Baby" kind of songs, the ones that I mostly sang were not your average bedtime songs. For whatever reason, they generally turned out to be Beatles songs. The ones that got the highest rotation, or were the most regularly requested, were "Yellow Submarine", "Eight Days a Week", "Octopus' Garden", "All My Loving", and "Ob-la-di, Ob-la-da". If I didn't remember all the verses, nobody cared. I just sang the same ones over and over.

Which, as far as bedtime songs go, were strange enough. But tonight has got them all beat.

Tonight, I got a new request.

I mean, a BRAND NEW request.

A song I had never ever ever sung at bedtime before, nor would it ever occur to me that a child would want sung to him at bedtime.

The song that my five-year-old asked me to sing him in bed tonight was....

"Oh Canada."

And he wanted it in english AND in french.

...

Whatever makes him happy, I guess.

Sweet dreams, my little patriot.

4 Comments:

At 7:13 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

How odd that you would find that odd. Oh Canada is pretty much the only song that would calm down any crying infant in our house. Sung by Joe, very, very loudly. Maybe he just terrified them into silence?

 
At 10:24 AM, Blogger Robin said...

Weird. It's actually a little odd that you would find it odd that I find it odd. Know what I mean?

 
At 10:48 AM, Blogger caramaena said...

My son is a music critic. He's always telling me to stop singing or covering my mouth. Except at bedtime.

Beatles are a big favourite here too, particularly Nowhere Man (he can now sing the chorus along with me), Michelle, All My Loving, Hey Jude and Eleanor Rigby.

 
At 9:15 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

that's mainly the reason i know any Beatles songs, and now sing them myself at jam sessions at the Centre.

nicely done, father, good judgement.

 

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