Tell Us About 05.2024: Music to My Ears

Hello Dollies and My Fair Ladies, for this month’s edition of Tell Us About, my friends are talking music.  I am happy to be joining them again after a very long hiatus away from this fun series and link-up.  My last Tell Us About post was this one about laughter written waaaaay back in 11.2023.  Heavens, it has been  6 months!!  Glad to be back among these clever, creative bloggers.

Tell Us About

Are you new to the Tell Us About (TUA) series?  Let me tell you about it!!  TUA is a global writing challenge where bloggers from all around the planet(!!) respond to a different prompt on the third Thursday of each month.  I joined the group early in 2023 and so appreciated the invite to do so, and the opportunities to do some creative writing on my blog. But then LIFE got crazy with PC’s health and I just couldn’t think straight enough to write blog posts of any sort.  For this month, things are calmer and I can breathe again!!  So, I am happily joining in again.

You can find my other TUA posts here:

Tell Us About –

• Play
• Scent
• Gardens and Gardening
• Ways I’m a Curiosity
• Travel
• Imagination
• my theme choice for September, Legacy
• Hometowns
• Laughter

Just a reminder:  Once Upon a Time & Happily Ever After occasionally uses affiliate links which are usually italicized.  If you click or make a purchase from an italicized link provided I may receive a very small commission at no cost to you.  Thank you for your support.

Please find the places and posts where I link-up on this page.

Tell Us About 05.2024:  Music to My Ears

Music has always been a part of my life, more important during some seasons of my life than others.  But I have always associated certain songs with certain people or periods and when I hear them, I can be instantly transported back in time.  Today when I took Lucia and Cami to school, they began to serenade me in chorus from their car seats in the back.  When I asked what they were singing they told me it was a song called “Remember Me” from the Disney movie “Coco”.

Four-year-old Cami shared that she was singing the song yesterday before school and got very sad.  She said it made her cry.  Isn’t it something how music and lyrics can move even a toddler in such a way?  The girls’ sweet voices warmed my heart this morning.  Music to my ears.

Ballets

If we have been pals for any length of time, you have probably been able to deduct that I was a pretty odd little girl who grew up to be a similarly odd little old lady.  As a 2-year-old, my mom would get me all dressed up for daddy-daughter dates to attend the Buffalo ballet with my father. The classical music written for the most well-known ballets was also very familiar to the toddler me as the playlist of my youngest years of life.  My father loved Tchaikovsky (“Swan Lake” and “Nutcracker”) and I loved watching the beautiful baleenas (Cami’s word for ballerinas) in their stiff, sparkly tutus and satin pointe shoes.  

Broadway Musicals

Classical music took a back seat to the scores of the Broadway musicals of the 1960s when I became old enough to speak and then sing in full sentences!!  Here are my favorites as listed on Stage Musical Chronology.

• “Bye, Bye, Birdie”, 1960
• “West Side Story”, 1960*
• “King and I”, 1960
• “Camelot”, 1960
• “Oklahoma!”, 1963*
• “My Fair Lady”, 1963*
• “Hello, Dolly!”, 1964
• “Fiddler on the Roof”, 1964*
• “South Pacific”, 1965
• “Funny Girl”, 1966*
• “Mame”, 1966
• “Cabaret”, 1966
• “Fiddler on the Roof”, 1967*
• “Sound of Music”, 1967*

Those musicals with the asterisk were particular favorites.  For weeks at a time, I would often hold hostage my parents’ Broadway musical LPs for these productions.  I had a little record player in my room and would play a few notes/lines/lyrics of a song, then lift the needle off the record long enough to scribble down the words before attempting to replace the needle about where it had been and repeating the process for the next 4-5 words and notes.

“Popular??” Music

When I was in about the 4th or 5th grade, my parents bought my sister Valerie and I 45 rpm records of a half-dozen Billboard Top 100 hits.  At that time, I loved listening to the radio in my parents’ Plymouth sedan and remember singing along from the backseat to “Georgy Girl” by the Seekers (’67), “These Boots are Made for Walking” by Nancy Sinatra (’66), and “Downtown” by Petula Clark (’65).  But the records my parents gave us were nothing like the ones I enjoyed singing to.  I can only remember one of them, “Magic Bus” by The Who.

I’m sure most kids would have thought their parents cool for giving them The Who.  But I thought they were weird and had terrible taste in music.  I absolutely adored the Monkees.  Why couldn’t they have given us a couple of their 45s?

We moved from Boston to Memphis in 1968.  In middle school, I began babysitting for the neighbor family who lived behind us.  I couldn’t get their kids to bed fast enough, and then I would rearrange and tidy their kitchen cabinets and pantry (unrequested).  And when I was finished with the ‘chores,’ I would put on their Diana Ross and The Supremes or Beatles LPs with the volume very low and dance.  Why didn’t my parents give us, even listen to music like that themselves?

Motown Sound in Memphis

Memphis had and still has its own music scene.  Of course, there was Elvis.  And my maternal grandmother positively swooned over him.  But he wasn’t my cup of tea.  With my friends, I listened to whatever was playing on WHBQ-Memphis AM radio.  I remember listening by the hour to “Build Me Up Buttercup” by The Foundations in my friend Nancy’s pretty green, black and white checkerboard decorated bedroom.  At home in my own room, I still semi-secretly listened to the soundtracks of Barbra Streisand musicals like “Funny Girl.”

I came to love John Denver and could sing the words to all of his songs, and did so on repeat all the way through high school.  Loved “Annie’s Song” and “Grandma’s Feather Bed.”  Dreamed of marrying a forest ranger and moving way up into the Rockies where my family vacationed for a number of years in the 1970s.  Loved the Carpenters, too, and saw them several times in concert.  And Chicago.

But at school, for all the dances, homecoming, the Snowflake Ball and the prom, the music we danced to and giggled to and cuddled to was the Motown sound of Marvin Gaye’s “Heard it Through the Grapevine” and Michael Jackson and Jackson Five, “I’ll be There” and “Just My Imagination” by The Temptations.  We even had to create our own dances to some of those songs in PE class and perform – the horrors – in front of the rest of the girls.

Folksy Music of College Years

College…enter Carole King, Carly Simon, Linda Ronstadt, James Taylor, Harry Chapin and few edgier artists like Joni Mitchell.  Mixed in with Aerosmith and Boston.  The soundtrack of “Saturday Night Fever” on the few occasions I went disco dancing.  And my beloved John Denver was still a favorite choice.

Panama

Living in Panama was kind of like being trapped in a time warp.  We got everything from the U.S. months and months late.  My daughters’ dad and I lived for Casey Kasem’s American Top 40 on Armed Forces radio every Sunday morning.  It was our only glimpse into what music was popular and playing back home.  We heard rumblings about something called MTV and VH1 but had to wait to come home on leave to experience our first music videos.  We listened to a lot of Foreigner, Journey, Fleetwood Mac.  And the song “Gypsy” was one I danced to every afternoon when I was pregnant with Brennyn.

On days when I was feeling feisty, I liked Joan Jett and Pat Benatar. Oh, and Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” album was unbeatable.  “When the Doves Cry” by Prince always reminded me of my fun-loving brother.  Anything by Rod Stewart or ZZ Top reminded me of my sister.  On one very rare evening, I danced much of the night at a party to Rick James “Super Freak” and “Give it to Me, Baby”  at a party with other soldiers’ wives and their husbands.  Not like me at all!!

Embracing My Roots

In the 90s, I was happily living back in the U.S. of A., waving my American flag and falling in love with country music.  Goodness, the country music in that decade was so good.  One of my first favorite artists early on was John Michael Montgomery who sang the most romantic songs like those on which fairy tale love must surely be based on.  “I Swear” and “I Can Love You Like That.”  Every girl should be loved like that.

From “I Swear” ~

And Then the Music Stopped

Sometime after my divorce from my second husband, the girls’ step father, music stopped being important to me.  I stopped listening to the radio as much as I had in the past.  Not really sure why.  Life got harder.  I was often working more than one job, the girls were teenagers and listening to their own preferences in music.  My heart was heavy and I was kind of lost.  I was bobbing between the country music from my ‘former life’ and the top 40 music Brennyn and Lauren wanted to hear in the car on the way to school.

Brennyn liked the passionate, emotive songs of Alanis Morissette.  Lauren preferred the music of Celine Dion and Mariah Carrey and Shakira.  I was content to listen to any of those artists.

Enter My PC

When I met Paul, I was introduced to some of his favorites.  In particular, Alison Krauss and my song for him became “The Lucky One” because while he has had his share of hiccups in his life, he has always landed on his feet and in a better place than where he was.  The song below by Rascal Flats is probably the song I associate most with US, PC and me.  We both traveled some very broken roads before we found each other in 2003.

Today

While I think the lyrics and language of much of today’s music is very clever and catchy, I also find much of it very disturbing.  So, in general, I am content to play my John Denver albums on my record player that Lauren gave me a few birthdays ago.  And in my car, although I have a discounted version of Sirius radio, I mostly bounce between stations that play 70s-80s-90s popular music and 80s-90s country music.  Very happy reliving the past through the music of my younger years.  Oh, and maybe a little Taylor Swift thrown in for good measure.

Your Turn

Is music an important part of your current season in life?  What music do you prefer?  In my Sentence a Day posts (those dreadfully long essays), I always mention doing my Supernatural workouts.  They are cardio workouts done while wearing virtual reality goggles and listening to my choice of music to accompany the boxing or flow exercise routines.  What a difference it can make to workout to music I like!!

Hope you will join me in visiting the blogs of all of the Tell Us About bloggers.  Summaries of their posts are as follow.

• Gail from Is This Mutton was transfixed one day in 1971 by the star who became her icon. Since then there have been other dalliances,  and she has even switched to a different type of music.  But she still remains true to the Prettiest Star.
• Suzy’s musical influences have ranged from pop to rock, shaping her journey through diverse genres. From Madonna’s catchy tunes to the soulful rhythms of Motown, music has been a constant companion, inspiring her creativity and enriching her life.
• Marsha at Marsha in the Middle grew up when AM radio reigned supreme.  Elvis would be crooning in the background along with Tom Jones and even a little Frank Sinatra.  As music changed from the crooners to rock to heavy metal to hip hop, Marsha’s tastes changed, too.  Or, did they?  You’ll have to read her post to discover the answer!
• Debbie the host at Debbie’s World goes back in time to her teenage self, rediscovers some favorites from watching Countdown on TV and realizes she was very naive when it comes to song lyrics!
• Finally, Penny, the Frugal Fashion Shopper, recalls how pop music was very much part of her life as a teenager and tells us about her musical influences, which were mostly on television. But she reveals that music now does not really feature in her life.
• Please stop by to visit our friend Sue at Women Living Well After 50, who managed to get her post written last minute despite a very busy week.

Music This Morning

As I mentioned above, Lucia and Camila serenaded me all the way to school today.  I am going to leave you with the official Disney video of the song they were singing.  Disney describes the movie as an “extraordinary adventure, [in which] a boy who dreams of becoming a great musician embarks on a journey to uncover the mysteries behind his ancestors’ stories and traditions.”  Viewers are reminded to never underestimate the power of music.

Amen.  I was in tears listening to the sweet voices of my baby girls today.

I hope my babies will always remember me.

Thank you for popping in today.  Wish I could treat you to a short but sweet blog post but that seems to be out of my wheelhouse.  Hope maybe you will stop by again later for my Ageless Style post.  Feels good to be blogging again.

Hugs and kisses,