Wednesday, February 12, 2014

Music (not) on the brain

Something dispiriting that having a newborn has revealed about me: Although I have many songs in my head with which to serenade my child (particularly when trying to soothe him, or during diaper changes) I discover when I start to actually sing them I don't know all the words without the song playing along. Sure, I can concoct alternative lyrics on the fly or fall back on wordlessly humming the melody, and my son has no grasp of any of this yet anyway, but when I started singing I at least fancied the notion I had the words more or less down.

Even Beatles' songs I've heard literally hundreds of times fade part way through. ("She Came In Through the Bathroom Window" shouldn't be that difficult, should it?)

What this really indicates: I was deluding myself all these years that I had paid sufficient attention to the lyrics—or rather, that I only "knew" them in context of hearing the song in which they were featured.

My brain needs to re-contextualize these songs… or perhaps I merely need to accept my limitations and do more humming.

It's not like I have a decent singing voice. Eventually my child will be old enough to grasp that, and maybe I should steer things in another direction early on.

But at least he doesn't know any better yet.

(Things they don't tell you about parenting.)

No comments:

Post a Comment

So, what do you think?