Pursuits : Elizabeth Thomsen

My mother loved to sing, just for fun, and she sang all the time, singing along with the radio or record player, or just a cappella. I especially remember her singing while doing the housework. She sang all kinds of songs, including hymns, show tunes, jazz, TV jingles, and pop songs from Kate Smith to Herman’s Hermits.

But it’s Hard-Hearted Hannah is the song my sister and I always refer to as “Ma’s big number.” I remember she especially liked to sing this one while vacuuming in rhythm. We found this song slightly thrilling and embarrassing, what with lyrics like An evening spent with Hannah sittin’ on your knees, Is like travelin’ through Alaska in your BVDs.
(more…)

Jonathan Coulton is my favorite singer-songwriter, and I especially like the fact that he releases all his music with a Creative Commons license and encourages people to make videos and otherwise use it.

This one’s not new, it’s been around for a couple of years, but somehow I missed it until recently, and right now I am in the mood for something as silly as Mr. Fancy Pants :

“Chances are your pants are not as fancy as the pair
Of very fancy pants that Mr. Fancy Pants will wear
When everybody’s marching in the fancy pants parade
He’s gonna pass the test
He’s gonna be the best
The best in terms of pants”

Mr. Fancy Pants — Flash video by Mike Young, self-proclaimed Insane Game Designer, with photographs from Flickr.

Years ago, when my daughters were still in high school, we discovered a Boston-based band called Hypnotic Clambake. I don’t remember where we first heard them — we used to go to a lot of random concerts, fairs and events back then. But we heard them somewhere, bought a couple of cassettes, and some of their songs became part of the background music of our family life back then. Their music was a witty and lively mix of styles — folk, Zydeco and Klezmer among other things.
(more…)

I spend a lot of time wandering around on YouTube. It’s amazing what you can find there, and I especially exploring old music on YouTube. There are a lot of videos of musical numbers from old movies and TV shows, as well as audio put together with collages of images. it seems like every song reminds me of another one, and I tend to wander backward in time.

Tonight I was feeling nostalgic, and I did a search for the song Peoria, otherwise known as I Wish’t I Was in Peoria. This was one of my favorite songs when I was a child listening to my father’s record of Bob Scobey’s Frisco Band. I remember the wild and free feeling of dancing to it, and the cheerful rhymes of lyrics like : “Oh you can pick a morning gloria right off the sidewalks of Peoria.”
(more…)