What Did Your Mom Used To Sing?

Subject: What Did Your Mom Used To Sing?
From: Mooh
Date: 04 Feb 08 - 07:18 PM

A copycat thread to be sure, but hopefully a worthy one.

Living with Dad must have been a real experience (see my comments in that other thread), but Mum (her spelling) did sing. I remember some Scottish songs like The Skye Boat Song, Girl Guide & camp songs, and hymn tunes. She was a good alto voice, and could sight sing well, but better with accompaniment. She was influenced by her Scottish parents, Dad, Girl Guide songs, and the church's music. She, like Dad, is gone now, and her good temperment, kind heart, sound judgement, and unconditional love is missed by all of us. Her character was a big part of what she liked to sing, as it should be.

How about dear old Mom?

Peace, Mooh.

Subject: RE: What Did Your Mom Used To Sing?
From: Charley Noble
Date: 04 Feb 08 - 08:19 PM

Mother did most of the singing, most of it in her own special key. She knew old English ballads, drinking songs, downright bawdy songs, tearjerkers, cowboy songs, sea shanties, limerick songs, political songs, but no popular songs or show songs. She was a real snob about what she'd sing and still is at the age of 90.

Some of the singing was around the house as we were doing chores. Sometimes there were song parties with neighbors and/or relatives; that was the best!

Mother didn't play an instrument but she could read and write music, something she never passed on to me.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: What Did Your Mom Used To Sing?
From: GUEST,melinda
Date: 04 Feb 08 - 08:38 PM

You are my sunshine.

Probably the first song I learned. I still love it.

Subject: RE: What Did Your Mom Used To Sing?
From: Kent Davis
Date: 04 Feb 08 - 08:40 PM

Mother will tell you that she can't sing well, but I think she does a fine job.

I remember "Bye, O Baby Bunting", "Rock-A-Bye, Baby" and "Brahm's Lullaby" well enough to have sung them to my own children.

She also sang "I've Got the Joy, Joy, Joy, Joy", "Deep and Wide", "Jesus Loves the Little Children", "Jesus Loves Me", "The B-I-B-L-E", and "The Wise Man Built His House Upon the Rock". See detail.cfm?messages__Message_ID=2132416

Kent

Subject: RE: What Did Your Mom Used To Sing?
From: Joe_F
Date: 04 Feb 08 - 08:54 PM

Everything, beginning (I suppose) with Rozhenkes mit Mandlen while we were still in the hospital. In addition to real songs, she would steal opera tunes for admonitions such as "Wash hands for dinner".

Subject: RE: What Did Your Mom Used To Sing?
From: jimmyt
Date: 04 Feb 08 - 09:13 PM

WW2 songs I remember her singing, White Cliffs of Dover, Now Is the Hour, Mairsy doats, You are my Sunshine come to mind.

Subject: RE: What Did Your Mom Used To Sing?
From: Sandy Mc Lean
Date: 04 Feb 08 - 10:27 PM

My mother sang in both English and Gaelic. As a small kid I loved to hear her sing the old railroad disaster songs, Wreck of old 97, #9, and Jim Blake.

Subject: RE: What Did Your Mom Used To Sing?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 04 Feb 08 - 11:17 PM

My mother sang a lot of songs. One that I remember she sang was:

"Jack was every inch a sailor
Five and twenty years a whaler
Jack was every inch a sailor
He was born upon the bright blue sea"

And another was "Bonny Charlie's Gone Awa'".

Subject: RE: What Did Your Mom Used To Sing?
From: GUEST,LTS pretending to work
Date: 05 Feb 08 - 04:34 AM

Limpit's mum sings all sorts of things... usually daft ones.

Like 'B and Q' to the tune of 'be kind to our web footed friends', 'Bluebells are bluebells' (thank you Lady P...) and on occasions when she wants to be especially annoying, the main theme from the film 'The Vikings'.

She asked me to put music on her MP3 player for her forthcoming trip to France - I'm sneaking in a few folkie ones for her, cos I is evil.

LTS - Limpit's mum!

Subject: RE: What Did Your Mom Used To Sing?
From: Bert
Date: 05 Feb 08 - 04:42 AM

What took you so long Mooh? I've been waiting for someone to start this thread.

Mum used to play the piano - Pub style, so she knew and sang just about every old song you can think of.

A couple that I particularly associate with her are

All wrapped up in me little bottom drawer   and
He's only a working man.

For the coronation celebrations she got up on stage with some other local 'gels' and they performed "Washing up" and "This old hat of mine"

Subject: RE: What Did Your Mom Used To Sing?
From: nickp
Date: 05 Feb 08 - 04:50 AM

"I'm going to wash that man right out of my hair" when we were little and she was washing our hair.....

Subject: RE: What Did Your Mom Used To Sing?
From: goatfell
Date: 05 Feb 08 - 05:54 AM

My mum taught me Coulter's candy which I still sing to this day.

Subject: RE: What Did Your Mom Used To Sing?
From: Fliss
Date: 05 Feb 08 - 08:58 AM

Mum used to sing us to sleep with all the old music hall chorus... Daisy Daisy, She was a sweet little dicky bird, Oh Oh Antonio etc. I in turn sang them to my kids.

She did sing a few newer songs... Marsie Dotes and Dozey Dotes and Little Lambsie Divey, Over my shoulder goes one care, Have you ever seen a dream walking,

Plus of course all the traditional nursery rhymes. She alway sang Rock-a-by-baby last cos if I said "down" I was still awake!!

Mum is 90 and going blind and deaf, she would love to listen to music, but we havnt been able to find a Radio, CD and Tape player that turns up loud enough for her.

Subject: RE: What Did Your Mom Used To Sing?
From: Mooh
Date: 05 Feb 08 - 09:46 AM

Bert...I was wondering that myself, LOL!

Slane, Kelvingrove, Martyrdom...

Mum struggled a little with pitch, but always knew when she did. She could also identify a zillion bird songs, and one of the things I like to do with her in her declining years, post strokes, was to drive to a remote old logging road in the woods, turn off the ignition, and just listen. She would ooh and aah and tell me what she heard. Those bird songs were true music to her, and represented all of what was good in the world, in defiance of what wasn't good in the world.

What I wouldn't do for one last song.

Peace, Mooh.

Subject: RE: What Did Your Mom Used To Sing?
From: topical tom
Date: 05 Feb 08 - 09:51 AM

Where to begin! My mother sang snatches of many songs and sometimes an entire one.Some of them were:

             The Baby's Name...(Boer War era song)
             Come Away From That Window, My Love And My Dear...
             Three O'clock In The Morning
             Moonlight And Roses(bring wonderful memories of you...)
             Put Your Arms Around Me, Honey, Hold Me Tight...
             When The Black Cat Crossed My Path
             Pack Up Your Troubles In Your Old Kit Bag
and many more.

Subject: RE: What Did Your Mom Used To Sing?
From: vectis
Date: 05 Feb 08 - 06:55 PM

Alas! Whilst my dad sang almost up to the day he died, poor old Mum couldn't hold a tune in a bucket. She loved music and songs though.

Subject: RE: What Did Your Mom Used To Sing?
From: Dave Earl
Date: 05 Feb 08 - 07:25 PM

Jesus wants me for a sunbeam
To shine for him each day
A sunbeam, A sunbeam
I'll be a sunbeam for him

Sorry but the rest, if there is any, has faded away but it did send I to bye-byes when i was a littlun.(I'm told)

Dave

Subject: RE: What Did Your Mom Used To Sing?
From: Joe_F
Date: 05 Feb 08 - 09:23 PM

Breton Cap: That was one of the songs my mother taught me, tho she had long since ceased to be a Methodist. As a toddler I loved & demanded songs with lights in them, and so she was driven back to Sunday school: "Lead, Kindly Light", "Brighten the Corner Where You Are", and so on.

Subject: RE: What Did Your Mom Used To Sing?
From: JennieG
Date: 06 Feb 08 - 01:16 AM

My mother sang along to the radio, which she turned on first thing in the morning and turned off last thing at night. That was late 50s going through to the 60s. She sang along with every song that she knew - songs from the 50s, 40s, 30s, even the 20s and earlier (it was a country station that played all sorts of music, not a city station that only played the current hits) and so I learnt the songs by musical osmosis.

Cheers
JennieG who still has a soft spot for old songs......

Subject: RE: What Did Your Mom Used To Sing?
From: GUEST,Suffolk Miracle
Date: 06 Feb 08 - 04:03 AM

Friend of mine always used to introduce a certain song (can't remember which)with the words "I learnt this song sitting at my mother's steering wheel.'

Subject: RE: What Did Your Mom Used To Sing?
From: Mooh
Date: 08 Feb 08 - 06:46 AM

I wonder if the Girl Guides still sing as much as they used to. For the women in my family, it was a huge influence, one which is/was lifelong.

Peace, Mooh.

Subject: RE: What Did Your Mom Used To Sing?
From: An Buachaill Caol Dubh
Date: 08 Feb 08 - 10:52 AM

"Oro se do bheatha bhaile" and "The Dear Little Shamrock". That's it. But she recognised many more...

Subject: RE: What Did Your Mum Used To Sing?
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Feb 08 - 03:39 PM

I only remember my mother singing one line from "Why Am I Always The Bridesmaid", especially when she'd had an all-too-frequent row with my father. That line was, "One fine day, please let it be soon"....

Also my mother often made up her own words. To "The Ballad Of Davy Crockett" she would sing,

Davy, Davy Crockett
King of the Teddy Boys.

I have no idea why!

Subject: RE: What Did Your Mom Used To Sing?
From: Charley Noble
Date: 08 Feb 08 - 03:56 PM

Some of my mother's more archane songs were ones she picked up from her friends growing up in Greenwich Village in the late 1920's and early 1930's.

It's Sister's Turn to Throw the Bomb
Dunderbeck's Machine
Fatal Glass of Beer
Hullabaloo Belay
Don't Go in the Lion's Cage

She also used to sing the gospel and other Black songs she learned from her nursemaid Ella Robinson Madison:

Fight Wid Ole Satan
The West Indies Blues
O, de Lord Tol' Nory
Trials an' Tribulations
Gospel Train
Pharoah's Army
One Little Fambilee
Jonah an' de Whale

And she had an incredible memorary for old English and Scottish ballads.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: What Did Your Mom Used To Sing?
From: GUEST,Bob Coltman
Date: 08 Feb 08 - 04:13 PM

Loads of novelty pop songs and silly songs she learned at camp the summer she was eight. Love the old vaudeville line: "I learned these songs at my mother's knee ... or maybe it was some other joint." The top three were great favorites, often repeated:

Mairzy Doats
Be Kind to Your Web-Footed Friends
Mother, May I Go Out to Swim?
Where Do Mosquitoes Go
Where Do You Work-a, John?
How I Love to Get Up in the Morning (her version of Harry Lauder's Oh! How I Hate to Get Up...)
Where Oh Where Has My Little Dog Gone
The Tail On Her Lonesome Spine
Silver Dollar/A Man Without a Woman
Shoo Fly
Susan Van Dusen
Yes We Have No Bananas
Ain't Gonna Rain No More
The Old Grey Mare
Passengers Will Please Refrain (Humoresque)
With Her Head Tucked Underneath Her Arm
Alouette
The Bear Went Over the Mountain
My Name is Yon Yonson
Who Put the Overalls in Mrs. Murphy's Chowder
We Play Hoops "...in the park all day." (the wonderful old Fred & Adele Astaire novelty)

Plus a generous selection of the commoner nursery rhymes.

She rarely sang sentimental songs ... just cockeyed & puckish ones. She had few songs in common with Dad unless everyone was singing old favorites around the piano. Her versions were most always fragmentary -- two or three lines, or half a dozen -- sung while doing housework on sunny days. Or that's how I remember it. Bob

Subject: RE: What Did Your Mom Used To Sing?
From: GUEST,Bob Coltman
Date: 08 Feb 08 - 04:19 PM

And how could I have forgotten the fake-Indian chant she learned in camp?

Killy, killy, killy, killy, wash, wash, wash, wash,
Kair um king come kimo ...

There was more but that's all I remember (and I'm not too sure about the second line). Such Indian chants were, in a more innocent day, part of many camps' fireside sings. I bet if you made a collection of them, they'd be a fat notebook all by themselves. All gone now of course.

Hearing her carol this around the house was guaranteed to addle your head.

Bob

Subject: RE: What Did Your Mom Used To Sing?
From: Irish sergeant
Date: 08 Feb 08 - 05:52 PM

Stop the World I want to get off, When Irish Eyes are Smiling, Danny Boy.I'm sure there were others but I'll have to think on it. Neil

Subject: RE: What Did Your Mom Used To Sing?
From: Geordie-Peorgie
Date: 08 Feb 08 - 06:41 PM

Mairzy Dotes wez aalwez a good 'un - Aah see it mentioned a coupla times here

Fliss, pet!! Bye Baby Bunting aah remember me Mam singin' tiv uz as well!

There wez one which wez peculiar (aah believe) to where we lived in Waalsend. It went.....

Clap hands for Daddy comin' doon the Wagon Way
His pockets full of money an' 'is hands aall clay

The Wagon Way wez a road on which the trucks originally brought the coal from the pits (mines) to the docks or railway from what aah believe.

Subject: RE: What Did Your Mom Used To Sing?
From: Wuzzle
Date: 08 Feb 08 - 06:58 PM

When she was younger, Mum was in a band and sang Jazz and Blue's
then she met Dad and sang Hymns.
She Ran the Girl guides and sang about ships sailing from China with tea, then she joined a choir and sang more Hymns.



Gilly

Subject: RE: What Did Your Mom Used To Sing?
From: Alaska Mike
Date: 09 Feb 08 - 09:48 AM

My mother was a soprano with the San Francisco Opera Company for a couple years right after she got out of the Marine Corp in WWII. I grew up in a house filled with singing. She sang around the house, in the car, in church, and in numerous musicals and shows around town. My mom gave private lessons to hundreds of aspiring singers in our living room over the years.

She sang arias in English, German and Italian. She sang show tunes and popular songs from the 1920's on. She sang hymns, shanties, rounds, ballads, nursery rhymes, folk songs, and anything else that was worth singing. My mother taught me to love singing. She taught me how to breath correctly, to harmonize, to keep time, and to hit the notes I was trying to hit. She passed away before I ever started writing and recording my own songs. Any successes I have had or will have in music I own to her.

Mike