Sing alongs

As Erin mentioned, sing alongs are typical for passing time.  Since time immemorial, we’ve tried to outperform each other in annoying song-dance tributes.  The three girls will typically start things off, with the rest of the family chiming in for an over-the-top, craptastic sing along.  All of us have our go-to songs.  For instance, Dad’s favorite is a beatnik version of “I shot the Sheriff” while mom likes to sing a super high version of “Windy.”  Mom and dad are also known for whipping out absolutely random songs, some of them self-composed.  Dad, for instance, wrote a song with “it’s a bad day for taking a test, but it’s a good day for getting some rest.” Mom, however, tends toward Michigan fight songs.  I remember running to her room one morning as I heard something like a scream coming from her bedroom. But, nope, no danger, just mom belting the ‘ooohhh’ to the following:  

I want to go back to Michigan,
To dear Ann Arbor town,
Back to Joe's and the Orient,
And back to some of the money I spent,
I want to go back to Michigan,
To dear Ann Arbor town,
I want to go back; I got to go back,
To Michigan.
Ohhhhh! (insert Mary wail)

Father and Mother pay all the bills,
And we have all the fun,
In the friendly rivalry of college life, Hooray!
And we have to figure a helluva lot,
To tell what we have done,
With the coin we blew at dear ole' Michigan!  

Jeez Louise.  Caterwauling fails to describe.   

 

Just the other day, D and I did a rendition of the Phantom of the Opera for mom.  It started with me saying "come to me" (Marlena Dietrich style...another family favorite) to the tune of the Phantom’s “sing to me.”  She cracked up when D and I squawked the high note.  (The Phantom always makes her smile.)  We then sang an old childhood favorite “My Name is Stegosaurus, I’m a funny Looking Dinosaur.”  We could hear dad’s deep baritone chime in from the kitchen.  Hilarious.  We ended with a scat version of TKO and a bouncy version of “I’m walking, yes indeed, and I’m talking, about you and me…”  We like to keep our annoying tunes theme oriented and slightly motivational, although, I think our screeching has more the effect of slowing the ol’ lady down, than getting her to hop to it.  I remember a time back in August when D and I took mom for a walk.  We bobbed back and forth behind her to our rap version of Rocky and said we’d drop some beats for her as theme music.  (I bet she was rolling her eyes the whole way.)  Come to think of it, the most motivating song would be the theme song to Law and Order: Special Victims Unit (SVU), mom’s favorite show.  She even has a finger point-finger point-hip shake dance to go along with it.  Maybe SVU could be mom's rehearsal song for American Idol?? It could work.  -- J