Thursday, November 06, 2008

Everybody Sing Now

It is amazing at how early children develop their music preferences. Today, driving down the highway each of my young grandsons would ask for their favorite tunes to be played. This would work out well if they both enjoyed the same thing. My grandson Sammy prefers Neil Diamond. Let me tell you that two and a half year old can belt it out. He has the decibels and the style nailed down and when he and his grandpa get going it is beyond funny:

LIKE A CLICKY A CLACK
ON A ONA TRACK
HE A MUSIC A SPARE
YES IT DOES YESS DOES

It truly did make a beautiful noise. He adores the music from Hairspray as well. Sometimes it is hard to see why they like a particular song. I remember my youngest daughter loved a song by Lee Greenwood called The Lean Green (or was it mean?) Loving Machine which she made us listen to over and over again. I just about went crazy. Thank goodness it never was very popular for good reason and it is never replayed on the radio. Four year old Ben happens to love Skater Boy. We think that it may have to do with the lyrics. They are repetitive.

He is a skater boy
He said see you later boy

Ben just helped me with the words. Even though they are repetitive I had forgot them. I have a great capacity to block things out which was developed as a coping mechanism while raising four children. I think his mother is going to have a nervous breakdown if she has to listen to it much more. I think I need to sit him down with my I-tune library and see if we can find something different that catches his attention. Something different than Skater Boy. I treasure my daughters sanity.

My grandchildren do seem to like the same type of music that I loved as a child. I loved Harry Belafonte. I spent many hours shaking my body line with that guy. They love Harry Belafonte. Ben loved that as a baby in his Jolly Jumper. When I put the music on he would jump like crazy. Other songs did not get the same reaction. I love Broadway musical tunes. They love Broadway musical tunes. Of course they have modern musicals. I have not tried out Oklahoma on them. That is only because I don't own it. I bet they would like it. What did you like as a child?


7 comments:

The Invisible Mo said...

That's funny about Sammy loving Neil Diamond. He would get along well with my ex-husband.
My kids grew up watching musicals. Their friends often thought it strange that two of their favorite movies were "Paint Your Wagon" and "Fiddler on the Roof".
They watched a lot of older movies, but then I didn't let them watch a lot of newer stuff. When Dennis came to live with us and brought "Ghostbusters", I seriously thought about "accidentally" dropping a large something on it to break it. Later I realized it was actually not that scary or gross and actually it's still here in my collection of VHS.
I think children have a great capacity for music. When my granddaughter Mikaila was little I used to listen to Andre Bocelli all the time. She knew all the songs by heart and it wasn't unusual to hear her singing in Italian while she played with her dolls. She was three at the time.

Jenn said...

That's too funny, but oh so true.

My Monkey's current favorite is I kissed a girl. Really cute when they first start singing it. but after the 500th time it gets a bit much.

I kissed a girl and I liked it, gets a few strange looks coming from a 6 year old.

I love it when they come up with their own words, the words they think they hear. So funny.

Christine said...

@ mo: That would have been very very cute to hear a three year old singing in Italian.

@ aspergertopia: That would get some strange looks. Hahaha!

Jientje said...

All kinds of stuff really! I loved Neil Diamond and the Stones, and some French singers ... Anything really. I still do!

Momisodes said...

LOL! I love that he listens to Skater Boy :) That song is rather infectious.

My daughter seems to love Brazilian jazz. They sing in Portuguese, and she loves it. She has no idea what they're saying, but she loves it :)

Margaret said...

Tye loved Harry Belefonte's "Daylight Come and Me wanna go Home". I think that's what it's called. I think he liked it because my Dad would sing it with him.
Jack has always loved Disney tunes. He is 20 years old and still loves them.
I grew up on Country Music so I listened to "Funny Face" "Carrol County Accident" and "Harper Valley PTA" Now I like to sing along to Disney tunes in the car and also to Country Gospel.

Fluffy said...

I think my all time favorite is 'All in the Golden Afternoon' from Alice in Wonderland. I especially liked where Alice tries to sing along. She couldn't sing any better than me. I watch it on U-Tube. When I was little, Daddy always had the opera on Saturday afternoon. I have noticed that my children have very eclectic tastes which makes me happy.