How to Eat an Elephant ~ Chapter Seven: Sing Like You Know the Lyrics

It’s hard to talk about my dad and not mention his appreciation for music. Growing up, music was a big part of our life, but probably not in the way most people would think of having a musical influence in their home. Dad loved his country music. Whenever we were in the truck with him, he would have his own eclectic mix of music playing. He enjoyed the road and the radio and he taught me a unique appreciation of music. Waylon Jennings was his favorite. My dad loved the hillbilly lifestyle and the lyrics of Waylon’s songs seemed to best describe my dad’s attitudes about life. Waylon was a big influence on my dad's attitude. So much so, that to be honest, I am a little surprised that I was not named “Lucille”. Waylon & Willie, Johnny Cash, Billy Crash Craddock and others like them sang what turned out to be the background music in the movie that was my life. When Waylon Jennings died, I felt like I had lost my dad all over again. It is crazy that I would grieve over the death of someone famous, whom I had never met, but I felt like I knew him because of the memories that were made while his songs were being imprinted on my mind during my growing up years.

When my brother’s wife was expecting twin boys, everyone (except my sister in law) thought it would be the perfect tribute to my dad, to name the boys Waylon and Willie. When she was in labor, she refused to go to the hospital until my brother promised her he would not put Waylon and Willie on their birth certificates while she was unconscious!

 Often times, when I am feeling melancholy and wanting to feel close to my dad, I go for a drive and turn on the Waylon tunes….. It brings back lots of memories… happy ones and sad ones. These were our camping and fishing tunes. Even though it has been over 30 years since I went camping or fishing with my dad, to this day, I still can NOT ride around the hills of the Bear Lake Valley and not hear echoes of it in my mind. I am fairly certain that the ghosts that haunt the hills above the reservoir are humming, " I've Always Been Crazy, But It's Kept Me From Going Insane"!

Dad rigged up this box to put in his truck that had a portable 8 track player and a speaker. It was a homemade boom box before there was such a thing as a boom box. Whenever we were in the truck riding around or kicking around a camp site, he had his special kind of music blaring from his homemade boom box and we would sing along… whether we knew the lyrics or not. There was this one song by Billy Crash Craddock, called Sweet Magnolia Blossom. It became known in our family as the meatball song…even though nowhere in the song is the word meatball used.  My little sister was young enough that she didn’t understand adult ideas and so she would sing what she thought she heard in her 6 year old mind. She mixed up the lyrics and instead of singing “it was me boy”, she would sing,” it was meatball”….LOL!

My own daughters must take after my sister because they have done the same thing on many occasions. One time we were driving around (not that long ago, mind you) and a Beach Boys song came on the radio… Keep in mind my girls would have no idea whatsoever what a T-Bird was, so as loudly as they could, they were singing, “She’ll have fun, fun, fun til her daddy takes her TV away”… hahah…..I almost ran off the road I was laughing so hard! The words don’t matter! In fact, I have learned that the song is even more memorable when you mess it up!  

The lesson here is this: It was family time. It helped create our own special memories and the power of music helps us to recall memories and to remember and share those times with other people who experienced something along with us. Music, whether it’s classical or hillbilly, is a powerful way to cement ideas and memories into ones subconscious mind. With my own kids, we have some favorite “road tunes” that we listen to whenever we go on a family trip. It is just silly old country songs, like Big John and  Wolverton Mountain ( just to name a few),  that have become part of our family tradition. When one of our daughters left home the first time headed to college, she didn’t get very far down the road before she turned on these road trip songs to keep her company. She called me to tell me that it just wasn’t the same listening to them alone…A pay day for my mommy heart that she would associate those songs with fun family memories and that listening to them without her family would cause her to feel an emptiness and longing for her family... Those memories that she has of the times when we, as a family,  were doing something together while listening to them are indelibly etched in her mind. (If you happen to catch Emma and Savanah together, be sure to ask them to demonstrate their version of the music video for “The Battle of New Orleans”.)

My girls and I frequently gather around the kitchen while I am cooking or baking something and have a Martina McBride or Adele concert on the fly. I hope when my kids are older and they hear one of those songs we like to sing, that they will smile and think of our fun road trips or their silly mom in the kitchen, dancing with the broom and singing like no one is listening.