Road Music: Sing-Along Songs

To keep us occupied in the days before video games and portable DVD players, my parents staged sing-alongs.  On our road trips to Florida to see my grandparents over winter break, we sang every Christmas carol known to mankind.  Often Mom and Dad would break into harmony, he providing the tenor notes - or bass notes, if it was early enough int he morning - to underscore her soprano.  Since those Florida trips invariably included visits to Walt Disney World, Mom and Dad would also toss in a few classic Disney songs from the likes of 'Jungle Book', 'Snow White', and 'The Aristocats'.


My dad started out his career as a band director and music teacher.  He loved old popular songs from the late 1800's through the 1950's, and was always willing to trot them out for our amusement.  We sang this version of 'Bicycle Built For Two' a lot:


Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do.
I'm half crazy all for the love of you.
It won't be a stylish marriage,
I can't afford a carriage.
But you'll look sweet upon the seat
Of a bicycle built for two.


Donald, Donald, here is my answer true.
I'm not crazy for any love from you.
There won't be any marriage
If you can't afford a carriage.
I'd rather have sore feet
Than blisters on my seat 
From a bicycle built for two.


This song reminds me of the 1950's Disney short featuring Daisy and Donald Duck.  I always thought it was terribly shallow of Daisy to reject Donald based on what kind of vehicle he drove.


The Newbold Family Trip Songbook included a tragic lullaby Dad's mom taught us.  Until I started writing this post, I never knew how many versions existed of this song.  Here are the lyrics as Grandma Ruddell sang them:


Oh, don't you remember a long time ago
Two poor little babes whose names I don't know
Were stolen away on a bright summer's day
And lost in the woods, I've heard people say.


And when it was night, so sad was their plight
The moon had gone down and the stars gave no light.
They sobbed and they sighed, and they bitterly cried.
Those poor little babes, they lay down and died.


And when they were dead, the robin so red
Brought strawberry leaves and over them spread
Then sang them a song the whole day long.
Two poor little babes,
Two poor little babes.


You'd think lyrics like that would give little kids nightmares, but we clamored for this song.  The memory of Grandma singing it to me in the back seat of the car is still with me.  Even now, I can feel Grandma's arm around me and hear her pleasant alto voice resonating softly in her chest as I lean drowsily against her.


Another nonsense song we learned from Grandma Ruddell was this one:


Sing, sing, what shall we sing?
Two little dogs, tied to a string.
One by the tail and one by the toe
Over and over to Grandma's they go!


This song was always sung at a jaunty tempo, perhaps to give an upbeat twist to the slightly disturbing lyrics.  The Google search I did for these particular lyrics turned up nada.  The closest match is a nursery rhyme about cats and pudding string:


Sing, sing, what shall I sing?
The cat's run away with the pudding string.
Do, do, what shall I do?
The cat's run away with the pudding too.


My favorite of all time was called 'Sweet Violets', a song that was written in the 1880's and recorded by Dinah Shore in the 1950's.  The clever wordplay cracked me up every time.  We sang this version, with Dad pausing dramatically at each ellipsis:


There once was a farmer who took a young miss
Behind the barn where he gave her a...
     Lecture on horses and chickens and eggs
And told her that she had such beautiful...
     Manners that suited a girl of her charms
A girl that he wanted to take in his...
     Washing and ironing, and then if she did
They could get married and raise lots of...


Sweet violets, sweeter than the roses
Covered all over from head to toe,
Covered all over with sweet violets.


Perhaps by today's standards these songs are a little dated and goofy.  Really, though, what great kid songs aren't a little silly?


I always thought the reason Mom and Dad sang to us was to keep us from asking 'Are we there yet?' every ten minutes.  But as I researched these songs and the way they evolved through time, I could sense something deeper at work:  the perpetuation of tradition.  Our family, singing to amuse ourselves and stay awake as we pounded through the darkness in our powder-blue station wagon, may not have been that different from the countless generations before us, who expressed tribal knowledge through song as a means of keeping their history alive as they moved across the land.