Fox's Glee has shown audiences how to find self-expression through old Journey and Madonna standards. Those passionate, emotional choir students do a fab job with top-of-the-lung Queen covers. But imagine them in your kitchen, belting out "Don't Stop Believin'," before you've had your first cup of coffee. Still charmed?
In the Cranky household, there's no mute button for the household soundtrack. Cranky #2 has a song in her heart, and she almost never keeps it to herself. She's got songs that tell you how to spell "and," "me," and "is." Songs that tell you the days of the week and months of the year. Most of Dolly Parton's greatest hits. Partisan songs that are inappropriate in particular venues: for example, "The Eyes of Texas" in the Oklahoma City Stockyards. Now-sophisticated Cranky #1 at times weeps in frustration at the background music in Chez Cranky; however, MC remembers C1 vocalizing the theme from Oklahoma, amplified by the excellent restroom acoustics in the Bob Bullock Museum in the capital of Texas.
Cranky Methodist Church only encourages this tunefest. MC thought that that only a few people could hear C1 singing along with the choir's anthem on Sunday. She thought wrong since, even without a microphone, C1 has excellent diaphragm support and projects for the farthest balcony. Truth be told, there's historical precedent for inappropriate Cranky family singing at Cranky Methodist. A twisted nursery worker named Pam taught wee Meta Cranky all the verses to a schoolyard ditty called "Gang Bang Lulu," which MC lustily repeated to all within earshot. Hey, life is a cabaret, old chum.
The Music Man's Harold Hill says that "singing is sustained talking." Sustained talking is one thing: C2 appears to be channeling Ethel Merman.
The butcher, the baker, the grocer, the clerk
Are secretly unhappy men because
The butcher, the baker, the grocer, the clerk
Get paid for what they do but no applause.
They'd gladly bid their dreary jobs goodbye for anything theatrical and why?
There's no people like show people, they smile when they are low
Angels come from everywhere with lots of jack, and when you lose it, there's no attack
Where could you get money that you don't give back? Let's go on with the show!
--MC
Where in the family tree did you and Herr Cranky find the genes for C2?! She amuses the heck out of me, but I am sincerely mystified, knowing well graceful nature and your tactful diplomacy and Herr Cranky's serious, studious, and quiet self. All I can say is that I do hope you are saving up for the New York School of Drama, because even with its wide-open spaces, Oklahoma may not be a large enough stage for Cranky #2.
ReplyDeleteI remember you and I singing along with the other cousin to "I'm Henry the 8th I am" about 6000 times and her dad yelling at us to "Shut the Hell up". I understand, now. At the time I thought it was a great song.
ReplyDeleteHearing C2 sing "Jolene" on the way to work made my day last spring. And when she sang it the 2nd time through it was just as good.
I am looking forward to seeing C's 1&2 in a couple of weeks because I learned some good songs in kindergarten this year, including (wait for it) "Armadillos", which has the awesome lyric: "you can find us in the country, you can find us in the city, you can find us on the highway but it SURE AIN'T PRETTY, armadillos". Between that and "I'm gonna go eat worms", I will expand C2's repertoire to fill your ears with song all summer. xo