I was pursuing the peppers in the veg aisle of the supermarket recently when a lady next to me said, ‘you sound in a good mood.’ A nice thing to say but it did make me realise that once again I was singing to myself – out loud – in a public place; and not for the first time either. When I worked in an office it was often pointed out that as I wandered from the photocopier to the kettle, from one desk to another etc I would be humming or singing.
I don’t notice that I am doing it most of the time and wonder if it perhaps stems from when I lived on my own and it was either a case of – talk and sing to yourself or find that you have a gone a whole day – or sometimes more, without even uttering a syllable out loud.
I find that I am not discriminate about what I sing along to either. In shops, where they blare out awful music at far too loud a level (and yes, I am aware I sound like a grumpy old woman here – but I don’t care) I will realise that I am singing along to whatever the latest pop wailing awfulness is – whether I know it or not, and rather multi-taskingly will be muttering about how much I hate it too.
Even our cats get their names sung (I’m not sure how impressed they are neither have provided feedback as yet). Our big cat, Marshall gets his name sung to the tune of Macho Macho Man by the Village People, replacing Macho with Marshall and the small cat, Gibson gets, Gibby Gibby Gibby Gibby – to the tune of Ruby by the Kaiser Chiefs. (I wonder if perhaps MOTH will have me committed but I think while I still cook lots of good food he’ll hold off.)
Singing has been an ever-present thing in my life though, along with all of the usual nursery rhymes that we hear at home and in pre-school, our lives, as children, were full of an expansive range of songs because of the folk world in which we grew up. To this day I can still sing, ‘eeenymeenymingmongpingpongchoweasyveeseyvacaleesyeasyveasyvoweenymeenymacaracarareeyechickarackadominackalollipoppaompompush*’ without even thinking about it. (This, believe it or not was the chorus to a very strange song about a family with very long legs and small feet – puts supercalifragilisticexpialidocious rather to shame don’t you think!)
But it’s not all insane randomness – I do do structured singing too in my singing group The Kettle Girls. There are three of us and we sing three-part close harmony a cappella across a range of styles from folk, to jazz, from blues to comedy. Rather excitingly we are writing our own songs now too (why it took us so long I don’t know considering we have all written songs in other outlets over the years). More excitingly than that though – we have finally got round to making an album – and yes, I am plugging it here and am rather proud that two of the tracks on it are songs that I have written. When you get to the end of this piece there is a link to hear a snippet of some of the songs we have recorded – and you know – if you feel inclined (christmas fast approaching christmas present idea alert) – they are available to purchase.
If I’m honest, I’m never really sure how we, The Kettle Girls, learn or retain new songs because our practices sometimes seem to be equal parts singing to drinking tea, eating biscuits or cake and chatting. We do WI talks and one of the things we always mention is that actually, we are not just a singing group but a support group too. I couldn’t count the times one of us has been feeling down, tired or not well and by the end of the practice feels significantly buoyed – and I think this is an important thing about singing – it is a mood lifter. I would fully recommend to anyone feeling low, put on your favourite album, turn it up and sing along.
And what an opportunity we all have coming up to get our voices into gear – Christmas. Whether it’s carols or the Christmas pop songs – I love them all! From the warm beauty of midnight mass to the fun of buskers or the brash office party caterwauling, it is a moment when we can all join in or listen and enjoy the sound of voices together.
My current repetitive madness is The Twelve Days of Christmas. I am making a lot of christmas stock at the moment and after knitting a couple of ‘calling’ birds I seem to be wandering around vaguely singing this christmas song – completely out of order as I can never quite remember it – and lets face it – the bit we all love and know the most is ‘fiiiive goooold riiiings’. (Incidentally, after years of singing this song and always thinking ‘what are calling birds?’ I finally looked it up. It seems the prevailing thought is that ‘calling’ is an Americanisation of the word ‘colly’ and colly birds were perhaps those of the rook, raven, crow, jackdaw, family or the blackbird – some kind of black bird anyway. Considering some of the other gifts given in the song – a blackbird would not be so unusual.) This does rather put pay to the knitted ‘calling’ birds I have been making, for they are rather more colourful than black, but if you can’t add a bit of colour at Christmas – then when can you!
If you find you are now singing the last five verses of the Twelve Days of Christmas repeatedly then why not get rid of the festive ear worm by having a listen to the Kettle Girls on the link below.
Listen to The Kettle Girls here
My knitted christmas gifts will be available to purchase on my etsy shop soon. Click here to see other things I have made and keep and eye out for the upcoming christmas decorations.
*spelling of this bonkers word/phrase may not be strictly accurate as has been written by memory.
**MOTH (Man Of The House)