The Blues

Pop Jones loves to sing.  She sang from the moment she could ga ga, and this year we gave in to her request for La-la-la lessons.  She adores it.

She hums at 6.30 am, belts out a song driving home from school, rips out a tune in the bathtub and warbles some notes as she retires for bed.

Pop Jones is seven years old.  She thinks she is the best singer in the entire cosmos, the new Streisand without the Yentl and the most promising thing to emerge from childhood since Cyrus of the Miley.  She’s a kid.  We let her dream, but sometimes – especially when mum has got a headache and needs to concentrate on driving, FFS – I ask her to ‘please, stop the effing singing before I go mad!’

The excessive singing?  It’s (kinda) my fault.  Some mummies have a sewing kit they share with their daughters.  Some mothers have a collection of old costume jewellery to make the connection with their girly offspring.  Some even bond by teaching them to knit, bead, foof hair, paint nails (that’s why I have sisters, by the way).

I like to share a good record collection with my girls.  Oh, and access to (appropriate) YouTube clips.

Pip and Pop have listened to music forever, and the range has been limitless.  From Dionne to Deborah Harry, from the New Romantic era of my teens to Perry Como.  From Sinatra, Bing, the Stones, the Beatles, to Madonna (pre-leotard) and Michael and Cher and The Cure.  From the Eurythmics to Australian pub music to Lady of the Gaga.

And Pink.  And Grunge, ballads, folk, classical and even rap.

Yep.  They have been exposed to bad language through music – obviously not in the classical sense of the word, although if Bach had provided lyrics, who knows what he might have said?  They have also been privy to suggestive words and phrases via music.  Again, not through the classical sense of composition, although I’m sure we could derive innuendo from putting a falsetto in your vibrato.  I could anyway

Mac and I are not prude, but we generally don’t use bad language in front of Pip and Pop.  Loving words, I believe that if we can f*cking choose a better one to describe how we f*cking feel, then we are doing fan-f*cking-tastic instead of a sh*tty one.

Recently, Pop came home and told me she was going to sing in the school talent quest.  Again. She’s been at school for 3 years and has performed in the talent show for THREE YEARS.  It nearly killed me when she was in prep because she played her toy guitar dreadfully and looked very seriously into the audience, thinking she was Joni Mitchell but sounding like she wasn’t.

She believes in her talent.  She lives for her craft.  She doesn’t care if (mean, nasty) people laugh at her, because they won’t, because she’s good.

And in a way, this is a beautiful (deluded) confidence to have.  It is I who possesses all the maternal worries of cruel kids, child in tears, rotten fruit on Pop’s school dress, but thankfully, it hasn’t happened.  Yet.

Anyway, Pop comes home about three weeks ago and tells me she and CoolGal are going to sing a Lady Gaga song in the talent quest.  It’s a hit which we know and love and sing AROUND HOME.

Here’s an example of some of the lyrics:

I want your ugly
I want your disease
I want your everything
As long as it’s free
I want your love
Love-love-love

Okay. No swearing or expellable words there, no Pink one-off f-words.  However, this prude mother, teenager of the 80s, sat Pop down and explained that ‘this is not a suitable song to sing at the school talent quest.’

Naturally, Pop was aghast.  We sang it at home.  We pranced around pretending to be the Gaga/Pink/Madonna (pre-sinews)/Annie/Missy/Duran Duran.  CoolGal (her newest BFF and someone who is youthful in years only) wanted to sing it. It’s ALL CoolGal wanted to sing.  She suggested it, Pop loves it and they will sing it.

Otherwise, CoolGal won’t go in the talent quest with Popsy Jones.

‘Oh well,’ I said, being the mother with a history of singing ‘You just like me coz I’m good in bed’ by Skyhooks before I knew you could be good in bed (still don’t know what that means), ‘you’re going to have to find another song that’s more suitable for a school talent show.  If CoolGal doesn’t want to do it with you, then she will be missing out!’

Pop was despondent.  She spent the rest of the night hrummphing, and there were a couple of mummy-moments when I thought I would give in, just for some respite from the alternate sulks and ranting.  Pip got involved.  She reminded me that Bad Romance by LGG had no swearing, but I reiterated my stand – some of the lyrics were too adult and suggestive in nature and there were better songs to choose for school.

The next night, Pop came home and told me that CoolGal ‘isn’t going in the talent quest now.  She doesn’t want to sing the other songs I suggested − Skater Boy, Paparazzi (!), Today was a Fairtytale (BLEH) – and she was mean!’

Pop figured out that CoolGal might not be the one to sing with or seek out at lunchtime.

She’s like a trampoline, ole Pop, she rebounds with the speed of a recoil spring on steroids.  By the late afternoon, she had worked out that she would sing the ‘first bit’ of Skater Boy (!) and was practising so much, I almost grated my face instead of the parmesan cheese for dinner.

As usual, Pop found Pip reading.  She sat next to her, singing at the highest decibels possible directly into her sister’s ear.

‘POP!  Shut up!  Just shut up with the singing!  Mum.  Pop is singing tooooo loudly.’

Sighing, I asked Pop to go outside (try the park, 10 kilometres away kid) and sing to our crazy pup, Effing Jones.  They have a love affair going, those two, so Pop told Effing to sit and he complied.  Five minutes later, I looked out the back window to see Pop holding Effing’s head in her hands and singing to him at the top of her lungs.

Effing’s ears were flipping and flapping in response, but she had a couple of fingers looped through his collar.  Such is a dog’s life.

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