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the age spread thing
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Subject: the age spread thing From: gunner Date: 16 Dec 99 - 05:30 PM in the "how old is a mudcat" thread a couple of people commented that there was a sort of statistical "bump" around the 40 to 60 age group among mudcatters, i'm 63 and as i was growing up way back in the stone age (40s and 50s)a lot of the old songs were still pretty much "common currency" not formally performed but hummed, whistled snd sometimes even sung just because people did know them and made "happy noises" with them when they were feeling good. (see "lazarus long" and the "pawnshop song" in robert heinlein's "time enough for love") i still do it myself at times though my tastes in music runs a bit to the bawdy. any one else care to comment? |
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Subject: RE: the age spread thing From: MMario Date: 16 Dec 99 - 05:36 PM I've commented several times on the fact that while I was growing up there was a lot more public singing/humming/whistling then I see/hear now. and according to my folks, there was a lot less THEN then there was while THEY were growing up. I'm a little less then two decades behind gunner. gunner! any idea if the "wild goose" song from heinlein actually exists? |
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Subject: RE: the age spread thing From: Mbo Date: 16 Dec 99 - 05:46 PM I'm trying to revive the tradition of singing and whistling in public. I do it a lot as I walk from class to class at ECU, trying to inspire other young folks to do so. You won't find it strange to hear me singing "Wild Mountain Thyme" or whistle "Tears" by Django Reinhardt or "Farewell to Craigie Dhu" by Dougie MacLean. And, from my extensive perusal of Reader's Digest Old(!)Standards songbooks, you might hear me whistling "Stormy Weather," "September Song," "Harbor Lights," or "Hymne L'Amour"(an Edith Piaf song.) I wish other kids would do so too, it's so much fun! Then we'd all be like those guys in West Side Story! --Mbo |
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Subject: RE: the age spread thing From: bunkerhill Date: 16 Dec 99 - 05:55 PM It does seem like people used to whistle while they worked -- or sing or hum -- more often. I'm 51 and in my formative teenage years a lot of folk singers were on top 10 lists (some even with a bullet, whatever that meant). Peter Paul & Mary, Kingston Trio, Brothers Four, Glenn Yarbrough. Little Richard got in the act with a recording of "Shortnin' Bread," Trini Lopez with "Lemon Tree." There was even a TV show, "Hootenanny," devoted to folk. These commercial influences helped form a later appetite for non-commercial music. My 21-year-old daughter now a big fan of Indigo Girls, Ani Defranco, Billy Bragg, Sinead O'Connor and other folk-influenced performers. In that sense, I think the circle's not only unbroken, but widening. |
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Subject: RE: the age spread thing From: Art Thieme Date: 16 Dec 99 - 06:01 PM Age spread, huh!? When I was a baby (from then to 5 years old) I had about a 12 inch waist. No, at age 58, I have a 44 inch waist. Bottom line : As I've aged I've definately acquired a more "impreesive" spread. Art Thieme |
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Subject: RE: the age spread thing From: Mark Cohen Date: 16 Dec 99 - 06:45 PM Art, I'm glad you straightened me out on that one. I thought he was talking about rancid butter. When I was a college student in New Jersey in the early 70s, I used to whistle the theme song of The Smothers Comedy Brothers Hour while I walked around campus at night selling hoagies. I also used to whistle "The Green Leaves of Summer" during gross anatomy lab. It seemed to help. Aloha, Mark |
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Subject: RE: the age spread thing From: Mbo Date: 16 Dec 99 - 07:22 PM I once played Paul Machlis' "The Bright Field" on my fiddle in Biology II Lab at community college! Continuing my crusade, I'm walking around the house singing "The Green Fields of America." Hope it catches on! --Mbo |
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Subject: RE: the age spread thing From: paddymac Date: 17 Dec 99 - 12:42 AM Gee, Art, your presumptions about this thread were the same as mine. I'm glad we were wrong, however. We don't need reminding about the "non-statistical" age spread. Though having said that, I'm sure there are all manner of statistices about it - probably in the CDC M&M statistics. |
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Subject: RE: the age spread thing From: Metchosin Date: 17 Dec 99 - 01:00 AM I whistle in public places...... malls, grocery stores paticularly where there's a good echo. When they were younger, my daughters refused to walk near lest anyone think I might be related to them. I've been doing it ever since my Grade 4 teacher admonished me that "A whistling girl and a crowing hen, always lead to some bad end." I even find myself whistling to "MUSAC" Egads! but usually I whistle to any thought that might pop into my head that has a related word. (right now its the BeeGees "its only words but words are all I have.......") I don't know if its an age thing for me, I think its just a form of rebellion left over from years gone by. |
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Subject: RE: the age spread thing From: gunner Date: 17 Dec 99 - 01:19 AM MMario, i've heard of at least two "wild geese" songs, one a "pop hit" back in the '50s by, i think, "frankie lane" ("i must go where the wild goose goes, for my heart knows what the wild goose knows...") the other is, i think, a kipling poem set to music and sung by, i think, again, "kathy mar" a quite good sci-fi/fantasty "filk" singer, this one would likely be the one heinlein was thinking of since an affection for "good ol' rudyard" is rather common in sci-fi fan circles, me included since i live about 3 miles from his former home in vermont up on black mountain road. i'm about to hit the sack, got duty at 0600 so up at 0400 but i'll get into my copy of "time enough for love" when i get a chance (soon) and get back to you. the "kathy mar" song is currently available on tape, i'll look up the source and pass that along too asap. "gunner" |
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Subject: RE: the age spread thing From: gunner Date: 17 Dec 99 - 01:24 AM art and paddymac, gee, i'm 63 and i still use a size 36 gunbelt!!! "gunner" |
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Subject: RE: the age spread thing From: Metchosin Date: 17 Dec 99 - 01:36 AM There was one in the forties as well, gunner, something about the woman waking up and finding only a feather on her bed and the line.......for I'm the brother of the old wild goose. |
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Subject: RE: the age spread thing From: Metchosin Date: 17 Dec 99 - 01:39 AM I remember! My heart knows what the wild goose knows And I must go where the wild goose goes (and the some words)which is best? A wandering foot or a heart at rest |
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Subject: RE: the age spread thing From: MudGuard Date: 17 Dec 99 - 02:26 AM I think the public whistling, humming and singing is replaced nowadays by the ringing of the mobile phones... MudGuard |
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Subject: RE: the age spread thing From: Sandy Paton Date: 17 Dec 99 - 02:30 AM "Wild goose, brother goose, which is best: A wandering soul or a heart at rest?" That dates me! But I had a 38-inch waist until I gave up smoking five years ago and ballooned up. Thought I'd quit before I got really addicted, figuring fifty-three years of it was pushing my luck. Now I tell Caroline I'll probably die of obesity. By the way, there's a fine Wade Hemsworth song about the wild goose on Rick Fielding's Folk-Legacy CD Lifeline. Sandy |
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Subject: RE: the age spread thing From: AKS Date: 17 Dec 99 - 04:13 AM What, is there someone suggesting that it would be possible to live without humming, whistling, singing ...???!! It took years until I realized that there really are people who don't sing at all, except perhaps hymns in church or religious gatherings. My mother used to sing or hum a lot - I think she still does at her 75s - when involved at any kind of work. My father (my parents are 'retired farmers' now) did ad lib whistling when working, he isn't as much musically inclined, even though he earlier played mandolin. So that's how I also became and it really is hard for me to imagine meself living silently without any music either ringing in mind or coming out of me (that is, if I'm not listening to something, then I sing along). Weird? Maybe, but I can not help it. regs Arto K Sallinen, not spread yet at 46 Joensuu, Finland |
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Subject: RE: the age spread thing From: IceWolf Date: 17 Dec 99 - 08:08 AM I sing on the hike from the parking garage to my office most mornings, and have evidently acquired a reputation. Some lady I don't know stopped me in the hall this morning and asked me where I learned "all those weird songs". My reply: "Osmosis." --IceWolf (who is in a somewhat better mood this morning) |
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Subject: RE: the age spread thing From: Midchuck Date: 17 Dec 99 - 08:11 AM "My reply: "Osmosis." Glad t'meet y'all. Ah's Joshua! sorry. |
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Subject: RE: the age spread thing From: momnopp Date: 17 Dec 99 - 09:49 AM I had a boss who asked me to stop humming. (She hated my happy outlook anyway.) Needless to say, I don't work there anymore!!! JudyO |
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Subject: RE: the age spread thing From: MMario Date: 17 Dec 99 - 11:10 AM I have, well, I'm not sure whether you can call it "good projection" - or whether I'm just LOUD; but I used to sing while I was doing tractor chores on the truck farm I worked on....and my voice carried a LOT further then the sound of the engine....which no one told me for years.... an' lemmee tell you, after a couple hours of harrowing AND singing, the throat is a mite dusty! |
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Subject: RE: the age spread thing From: Metchosin Date: 17 Dec 99 - 12:44 PM My favorite place for singing ever was in a laboratory where I worked. On rotation the techs would have to "wash soil samples" in a room with a piece of equipment called a Fenwick Washer which looked sort of like a big metal fume chamber, with lots of high pressure water hoses and roiling buckets of dirt and water. It was considered a chore by most . I loved it. The echo, the rhythmic pace of the work and all those wonderful negative ions from the rushing water and hoses was incredible. It was so loud it gave you the impression that no one could hear you sing, which wasn't the case. Fortunately everyone else in the lab was very tolerant of my idiosycrisities and my songs. |
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Subject: RE: the age spread thing From: bseed(charleskratz) Date: 17 Dec 99 - 01:16 PM I discovered back in my late teens working in a peach canning factory in Gridley, California, that loud machinery has its harmonies that damned near forced me to sing along. I was working a double line of peach pitting machines, and singing was the best way to pass the time on those 11 hour days. When I'm teaching photography and doing some routine task like spotting (retouching) a print, I often sing. Generally, my students seem to like it--they even request songs (mostly "Grandma's in the Cellar.") I sing--or sometimes play harmonica--while I drive, mow the lawn, whatever. "How Can I Keep From Singing?"--(actually, not a song I sing much--I don't think the mournful tune and the words go well together). --seed |
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Subject: RE: the age spread thing From: Ringer Date: 17 Dec 99 - 01:38 PM Wow: playing the harmonica while mowing the lawn! |
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Subject: RE: the age spread thing From: T in Oklahoma (Okiemockbird) Date: 17 Dec 99 - 02:09 PM I've been known to play a 3-hole pipe while mowing the lawn. I don't usually hum or sing at my desk (except on my lunch hour, when I practice my guitar), but I occasionally do so while walking down the hall. No one has commented on in so far. T. |
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Subject: RE: the age spread thing From: Fortunato Date: 17 Dec 99 - 02:37 PM Mudcatters Awake! Tell your children, friends and family and neighbors:
1)Turn off your TV; turn off your computer; turn off your vcr; turn off your nintendo. Take your friends and loved ones to a safe place in your house and make music. Sing songs, whistle, bang on a tin pot or just clap your hands. REPEAT REGULARLY AND AS OFTEN AS POSSIBLE! 2)Give instruments and singable songs on tapes or cd for christmas. (You can't hum the Nine Inch Nails' tunes) 3)Reach out to other groups, ORGANIZE 4)Yes, even turn off your radio if it's always on and drowning out the music in your head. If there's no music in your head, go find some you like and learn it! 5)GO BACK TO #1! If this sounds like a movement it is. It's called the Be a force for HOMEMADE MUSIC in your community. Cheers, Fortunato |
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Subject: RE: the age spread thing From: Mbo Date: 17 Dec 99 - 03:46 PM Restrooms really have good acoustics...and work really well if you're whistling Celtic tinwhistle or low pipe airs! I brought one of my Celtic CDs to my college figure drawing class a few weeks ago, and I was singing all the songs out loud, so everyone could hear, from Andy M.Stewart's "Take Her In Your Arms" to "The Rovin' Hielandman" and "There Were Roses." I even participated in Altan's "Donal Agus Morag" in Gaelic! Wheee! --Mbo |
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Subject: RE: the age spread thing From: Bert Date: 17 Dec 99 - 04:11 PM Metchosin, The way I heard it was "A whistling woman and a crowng hen are neither use to God nor men" I will hasten to add that I don't agree with the saying though. MMario, Does Heinlein actually give any words for his Wild Goose song? If not, could it be 'Ranzo, Ranzo'? Well, after reading all these opinions I resolve to sing more in public. 'Till they come and cart me away at least. Bert. |
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Subject: RE: the age spread thing From: Metchosin Date: 17 Dec 99 - 04:35 PM Well Bert maybe its time to break the mold. I had a banty hen clled Granny as a pet when I was small, that had been used for many years commercially to set on pheasant eggs. We got her after she no longer served a useful purpose and would not go broody any longer. She used to crow every morning to wake us, and if a rooster is considered of value for doing that, why not an old hen. We sure loved her even if God didn't. |
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