Friday, November 11, 2022 A By-Gone Era

I was having my regular FaceTime chat with my mom yesterday. It’s mostly me chatting, hoping she’s listening on some level. It’s hard for her to engage in conversations now, but if she’s awake and alert, we sometimes have a moment.

I have an old piano songbook of hers called “Favorite Songs of the Nineties.” No, that’s not the 1990’s, it’s the 1890’s. Something made me think of that book, so I dug it out and started going through it with her. I’m a little surprised at how many of those old songs I know – at least the choruses.

“Casey would waltz with a strawberry blonde,
And the Band played on,
He’d glide cross the floor with the girl he ador’d
And the Band played on…”

The interesting thing about that book is that my dad went through it when he was somewhere in the process of his dementia journey. He was a band teacher back in the day, so the pages are filled with his notes, like “Start – in C (one step up) – ready – DONE.” Or “Play in C – OK in cut time?” He circled some of the chord notations and made some changes in the music occasionally. There was hardly a page that had not been touched by his band-teacher pencil.

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 on the seat
Of a bicycle built for two!

I kept singing through the familiar ones and took a stab at the unfamiliar ones. My mom seemed to know most of them. She’d either hum along or she’d clap as I sang, if it was a peppy one. Sometimes we’d come to one at the top of which my dad had written a very commanding “NO.” I always told Mom about these prohibitive comments of his and wondered what it was that made him reject those songs. I came to “Give My Regards to Broadway,” and he’d written “T22 – chorus OK – swing it!” So I swung it.

Give my regards to Broadway,
Remember me to Herald Square,
Tell all the gang at Forty-Second Street
That I will soon be there;
Whisper of how I’m yearning,
To mingle with the old time throng,
Give my regards to old Broadway
And say that I’ll be there e’er long.

When I came to “Mary’s A Grand Old Name,” I HAD to sing it for my mom, since her name is Mary. I think sometimes she wished she didn’t have such a common name, and especially one that was associated with the old nursery rhyme “Mary, Mary, quite contrary.” The fact that she was a somewhat contrary person didn’t help. Dad’s notes on that one said “SWING.” All righty then!

For it is Mary, Mary, plain as any name can be;
But with propriety, society will say Marie;
But it was Mary, Mary, long before the fashion came,
And there is something there that sounds so square
It’s a grand old name.

We moved on from there to “Meet Me in St. Louis, Louis,” which contains the line about dancing the Hoochee Koochee and being your “tootsie wootsie.” People just don’t talk like that anymore, do they? Imagine sidling up to someone at a dance and saying, “Hey, baby, let’s dance the Hoochee Koochee. I’ll be your tootsie wootsie!” I’m afraid that you’d be left standing by yourself. No, the days of Tootsie Wootsie are gone.

We sang a few more and finished up the concert with a rousing rendition of “Ta-Ra-Ra Boom-De Ay!” If you haven’t sung that before or heard it, you’re really missing out. There are a lot of verses which I skipped (per usual) and the chorus just repeats the title phrase eight times. I remember singing along on that one pretty gustily at home as a child.

I wonder if all these old songs will just fade away into oblivion. It’s not like they’re very high-brow like classical music. But there’s an energy and innocence to them that’s very appealing. By the time we finished, I felt like I’d spent a very pleasant hour with both my Mom and Dad.

I’ll probably just Ta-Ra-Ra Boom-De-Ay this in the morning. If you don’t know what that means, I can’t help you.