What a dingdong!

Why did I find myself singing this earlier?

Clang, clang, clang went the trolley
Ding, ding, ding went the bell
Zing, zing, zing went my heartstrings
From the moment I saw him I fell

Well, we have a string of 3 bells on our door, so we- and the dogs- are alerted whenever it's opened. (They were actually Christmas decorations years ago and we liked them, so they stayed) I started to go out this morning to get the paper and Boomer went on high alert. But, I saw the cats waiting outside and I went to the other door to feed them before letting the dog out. Hence the bell song.

By the time I brushed my teeth I had segued into a different tune:

Ding Dong! The Witch is dead. Which old Witch? The Wicked Witch!
Ding Dong! The Wicked Witch is dead.
Wake up - sleepy head, rub your eyes, get out of bed.
Wake up, the Wicked Witch is dead. She's gone where the goblins go,
Below - below - below. Yo-ho, let's open up and sing and ring the bells out.
Ding Dong! the merry-oh, sing it high, sing it low.

When I realized the connection my mind immediately hopped again. I could have gone two ways, but I didn't pick the Judy Garland trail, choosing to go straight to Chuck Berry instead.

Oh my ding a ling, Everybody sing
I wanna play with my ding a ling a ling
Oh my ding a ling, my ding a ling
I wanna play with my ding a ling a ling.

Hmm, how many other songs do I know with dinging in them? Not many. The only other one was:

Ding dong merrily on high,
In heaven the bells are ringing.

Oops, now I'm singing this one:

All the chapel bells were ringing
In the little valley town
And the songs that they were singing
Was for baby Jimmy Brown

You wanna stop the madness.
Stop the madness now
Stop the madness
Stop the madness now.

PS. Check out  this video - I think it's safe to say it is the only music video you'll see with Nancy Reagan, David Hasselhoff and Arnold Schwarzeneggar making appearances.

PPS. You don't have to thank me for the earworm music!

Another Saturday night

This week was a busy one for me, since I had to be somewhere at a specific time on 4 of the 5 weekdays. Unusual for this summer, but I managed to still make time to check out the blogosphere. I came across this post at Suldog, which incorporates the lyrics to a Pink Floyd song and struck a chord with me(no pun intended). Not because I was a Pink Floyd fan in the 70's -I wasn't- but because my son was, in the 90's when his life was not taking a path we would have chosen. (He's doing just fine now, thanks).

I was thinking of how those lyrics immediately brought my son to mind, and how much a part of our memories different songs are. Just like certain scents, a song can bring me back years to a day, an event or person long forgotten. The soundtracks of our lives, I guess. Here are the greatest hits of mine.

My father likes marches, and so do I. We love a parade. When I was around 10, he was a volunteer fireman and was on the team that went to musters with the old fashioned hand pump trucks. These had long handles on either side which were hand pumped to generate the force to pump water through the fire hoses and the longest distance measured won the day. There would generally be a parade through town before the muster started, and teams of men pulled the trucks along. I marched in front holding one end of our banner, with the son of another fireman on the other end. We wore khaki uniforms, complete with hats. I can't remember if it was just one summer, or more that I did this. To this day, a bass drum thrills me to my toes.

(This link: Muster explains what a hand tub muster looks like, if anyone is curious.)

Moving right along to my mother- her musical talent, or lack thereof, is what most of us inherited, but, like the rest of us, it didn't stop her from singing around the house. "I've got a lovely bunch of coconuts" was a favorite, as well as "K-K-K-Katy" and "Onward Christian Soldiers".

When I hear "I Want to Hold Your Hand" I see my brother holding his little transistor radio to his ear."The Things We Do For Love" was popular when J and I were dating. When I said/sang to him "a bushel and a peck, and a hug around the neck" I meant I love you, although I didn't sing that part, since neither of us had admitted to that yet. I have never asked him if he knew that song- I don't think he did.

Our kids, so many to choose from- songs, not kids. I think they remember me singing "You are my sunshine". Everybody hated "Don't take the girl" and liked "Goodbye Earl". Then "Maneater"- that's Ms M and her friends singing in a second grade show (what was that teacher thinking?) "Nice day for a white wedding" and I see a video Sectaurs and friends made in high school about WWII using that as the background music. (Think Germans in snow)

Any Schoolhouse Rock song is Ameranth. I think she used it to study for her SATs, lol. Any Nirvana tune-is that an oxymoron?- is like an old favorite, except I only recognize the music, never could understand the lyrics. That came from Shoeshine playing it at high volume for several years upstairs.

The music played at high volume downstairs was often the Makem and Clancy Irish rebellion/drinking songs. The kids can sing along to most of them still, I'm sure. The "Wild Colonial Boy", "Four Green Fields", "Brennan on the Moor," "Jug of Punch," "Finnegan's Wake," and "Moonshiner" among many others.

I just remembered a greatest hits ad from the 90's that all the kids would sing on the school bus. They knew two lines each from a bunch of songs including "Wildfire", "She made love to me in my Chevy van", "I heard my Mama cry the night Chicago died" and "Hooked on a feeling"- the ooga chuka version.

Let the good times roll.