Family history across the seas

The Merry Month of May Music Meme: a meme for your amusement.

Since the whole point of this is to have fun, retrieve memories and generally chill out (very 60s!), feel free to amend/add/subtract. I’m not even going to ask you the usual checklist of have done, want to do, don’t want to do. If you feel the urge, go ahead, you know how it works. And, geneabloggers, yes there is still family history value in this: give your descendants a laugh, let them get to know you with your hair down.

1. Song(s)/Music from your childhood: Mum singing Turaluralura, that’s an Irish lullaby; Mum singing around the house, Dad signing in B flat but trying bush ballads; my grandmother playing Scottish music on the gramophone.
2. Song(s)/Musos from your teenage years: The Beatles, Elvis, Rolling Stones, Monkees, Bob Dylan, Herman’s Hermits, Acker Bilk, Dean Martin, Cat Stevens, Beach Boys, Mamas & Papas.
3. First live concert you attended: The Beatles in Brisbane (what an adventure!)
4. Songs your parents sang along to: I’ll take you home again Kathleen; Old Man River, Danny Boy, Aussie bush ballads…..
5. Song(s)/Music your grandparents sang/played: Scottish music (one side of the family); Catholic hymns or Irish songs (the other side of the family)
6. Did your family have sing-a-longs at home or a neighbours: A family in the neighbourhood used to have a pianola and hosted occasional sing-a-longs
7. Did you have a musical instrument at home: No, I learnt the piano briefly and played at the neighbours: we used to have chopsticks-playing speed competitions.
8. What instruments do you play (if any): None, sadly for me, happily for my listeners.
9. What instruments do you wish you could play: Bagpipes, fiddle, guitar (in that order).
10. Do you/did you play in a band or orchestra: See #8
11. Do you/did you sing in a choir: Even worse than #8
12. Music you fell in love to/with or were married to: Dean Martin, Acker Bilk, Mozart’s 21^st: the theme to Elvira Madigan, a star-crossed-lovers kind of movie (why we chose this I have no idea)
13. Romantic music memories: Making my mother-in-law cry with Mozart’s 21^st as I walked down the aisle at our wedding; listening to A Woman’s Heart for the first time in Dingle; our daughters’ music compilation for our 40^th anniversary.
14. Favourite music genre(s): Classical, light opera, world, with a dash of 60s pop.
15. Favourite classical music song(s)/album: The Swoon Collection III, Vivaldi’s Four Seasons.
16. Favourite opera/light opera song(s)/album: Cieli di Toscana and any other Andrea Boccelli; Puccini Romance
17. Favourite musical song(s)/album: Abba the Movie (for the sheer fun of it)
18. Favourite pop song(s)/album: The Essential Roy Orbison, Hot August Night,
19. Favourite world/ethnic song(s)/album: A Woman’s Heart (love the Caledonia track), any/all of Mary Black’s albums; any/all of Capercaillie’s albums; Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunipingu’s Gurrumul, especially the tracks in language.
20. Favourite jazz song(s)/album: not really into jazz but willing to be converted.
21. Favourite country or folk song(s)/album: Sara Storer (especially Billabong, Tell These Hands, Raining on the Plains, Boss Drover’s Pride, Katherine); The Rankins Endless Seasons; Former NT Administrator Ted Egan’s songs on Australian and Territory history; Graeme Connor’s North album for its North Queensland influences.
22. Favourite show/movie musical: My Fair Lady, Abba the Movie
23. Favourite sounds tracks: Mad Hot Ballroom (an inspirational doco on New York school kids in a dance competition); No Reservations; Top Gun (oh, yeah, love those songs).
24. What music do you like to dance to: Hmm, I married a non-dancer, but folk music or 60s. I did the twist at my daughter’s wedding with my girlfriends and man, did my legs pay for it the next day! Oh yes, and I forgot the Hucklebuck. At uni, I used to do ballroom dancing two or three nights a week.
25. What dances did you do as a teenager: jive, twist, rumba, cha-cha etc etc.
26. Do you use music for caller ID on your mobile: for my nearest and dearest (very handy) and on the house phone, for friends except for those pesky private numbers.
27. What songs do you use for caller ID: Dancing Queen, Pretty Woman, Mama Mia (reflecting people’s enthusiasms)
28. What songs do your children like or listen to: Popular, Country, an obsession with our old “Summer Holiday” LP, anything and everything.
29. Favourite live music concerts as an adult: Paul Simon’s Graceland concert, Guinness Irish concerts, Neil Diamond.
30. Silly music memories from your family: “take me home west virginger (Virginia)” (she was only 4); the look on the same daughter’s face when the rest of us came back from a Territory holiday singing country; belting out “riding right on into Queensland” (Ted Egan) at the end of a very very long drive.
31. Silliest song you can think of: this one came to me this morning (late addition) Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay and pinching from Catherine on this one: Purple People Eater
32. Pet hate in music/singing: Australian country singers using American accents; Nelson Eddy and Janette McDonald warbling; those incredibly sexist 60s songs that now put my teeth on edge.
33. A song that captures family history for you: Flesh and Blood composed by Aussie Shane Howard and sung by Irish singer, Mary Black has been a favourite since I first heard it on the bus to Canberra in 1994. The lyrics are so apt for family history[i]. It’s on The Holy Ground CD. Another might be Graeme Connor’s Let the canefields burn for the changes in family circumstances or Sicilian Born for the impact of migration.
34. If you could only play 5 albums (assume no iPods or mp3) for the rest of your life, what would they be: The Swoon Collection III; Deep Peace; Gurrumul; A Woman’s Heart; Graceland.
35. Favourite musicians: go ahead and list as many as you like: Neil Diamond, Andrea Boccelli, Capercaillie, Mary Black, Altan, Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunipingu, Handel, Vivaldi, Puccini……

I had fun, and I hope you do too when you do the meme. Mr Cassmob reckons that if you can remember the 60s you weren’t there. Hah, I was such a sweet young thing in those days!