Don't Let the Singing Stop!

Not long ago I listened to my seven year old daughter. Rosa, practice her piano assignment, picking out, note by note, a "mystery tune" she was supposed to identify. Eventually she would recognize the familiar melody, I thought. But after playing it just three times, she looked at me blankly. 

"It's Yankee Doodle," I said, astonished.

"Yankee Doodle?" she asked. "I've never heard of that." 

I was at least as embarrassed as I was surprised. How could my child grow up without.  "Yankee Doodle" and the other tunes in her head that every one of my six brothers and sisters shares with me? But now I think I know the answer. I have been keeping count of how often people sing around the house these days. The fact is, they don't.

My earliest memories are of my mother crooning lullabies as she rocked each infant in turn. She said she "didn't have a singing voice," but her low, wavering alto will always mean comfort to me. Every time I have sat through the night with a feverish baby or held a pre-schooler through a nightmare, the melodies returned, words appearing and disappearing like fragments of a dream but held together by the hum of love. 

Today, young mothers are routinely presented with lullaby tapes at the baby shower. When the baby cries, the idea goes, they will be able to switch on the high-tech audio system and the little one will drift off- the voices of strangers in his ears, perfectly on pitch. If I had my way, new parents would learn the songs themselves, and give their children the gift of their own sleepy voices through the midnight hours. 

Because my father was in the army, our family moved a lot. Summoning up memories of long trips on hot southern roads, I hear my father's voice belting out "Carolina in the Morning" - and we would all join in at the top of our lungs.

It was the way we measured miles. "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" might even take us across the next state line. It was also the way we learned how much our father loved our mother and about the history of their life before we kids came on the scene. I think I was at least 13 before I realized that daddy didn't find my million dollar mother in the five-and-ten-cent store!

These days, when we go on a trip, my daughters take along tiny personal stereos and headphones. They are lost in their private worlds, and I can't help wishing that at least here, in the ear, wishing that at least here, in the car, my girls would be obliged to listen to their mother's voice raised in lost-the-words-again songs that they might then pass down to another generation. Those sophisticated earphones have robbed them of something I think every kid should carry from childhood car trips into adulthood. 

When my father turned 70, my brothers and sisters and our kids gathered for a weekend of celebrating. My sister Mary hired a banjo player who knew all the old tunes, and in the autumn sunshine we sang the day away. The words returned to us as we heard our father's voice sing them again, and by the end even our little ones were learning the words and joining in.

I drove away from that party humming, and all the way home the good old songs kept tumbling out. Darnit! I thought, why did I ever stop singing in the car and start turning on the radio instead? Why don't I sing anymore when I am doing the dishes? I'm going to yank those stereo wires right out of the wall when I get home, and the headphones out of my daughters' ears right now! We're going to sing grace before meals, sing carols around the piano, sing in the shower instead of switching on that waterproof radio that stole away our voices and our souls. 

"Mom," said a voice from the back seat, breaking into what I thought must have been silence. "Those aren't the words," I turned and grinned at Rosa, the kid who didn't know "Yankee Doodle." 

"Let's sing it right the," I said. "Remind me what they are." 

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