40 and Over Club Meeting

[Miss Chicken]

Also known as the Old Farts Club.

The topic of this meeting is Songs from Our Childhood. By this I don't mean the songs you like when you started getting into when you were teenagers but those special songs you liked between the ages of around 4-12 or so.

My nomination is Puff the Magic Dragon, a song that would bring tears to my eyes whenever I heard it as a child. I was about 5 years old when it was first released.

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wik2uc69WbU&feature=related[/yt]

There are several other songs that meant a lot to me but I want to see if anyone else mentions them.

 

[boobatuba]

Had it on a 78. Same reaction.

I was a big "Winnie the Pooh" fan, or at least I had lots of those songs on records. How about the "Tigger song"?

The wonderful thing about Tiggers
is Tiggers are wonderful things.
Their tops are made out of rubber,
their bottoms are made of of springs.
They're bouncy, flouncy, trouncy, pouncy,
fun fun fun fun FUN!
The wonderful thing about Tiggers
is I'm the only one!

Iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiimmmm...the only one! *Tigger laugh*

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJFyz73MRcg[/yt]

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lu81z2E6pE[/yt]

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

I was 9 when this came out. It still gives me chills when I hear the opening.

[YT]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iViNn9Fy-B4[/YT]

There might be a few earlier songs, but this is almost like the first thing I ever heard and it was brand new when I did.

 

[Kirby]

I heard a phrase the other day calling music from the 70's and early 80's Yacht Rock. From the Urban Dictionary:

Another name for the adult-contemporary musical movement in the late 1970's and the early 1980's. It was defined mostly by its smooth sound. Popular Yacht Rockers include: Kenny Loggins, the Doobie Brothers, and Steely Dan.

"I saw Billy's dad out in Newport Beach the other day cranking out some yacht rock. It made me want to vomit a shade of teal blue puke."

Damn, now the youngsters have an official name for my favorite music.

LONG LIVE YACHT ROCK!

 

[scotpens]

In my preschool and kindergarten years, I had a collection of 78-rpm “kiddie” records in brightly colored yellow or orange vinyl. Some were nursery rhymes or songs from children’s TV shows. And there were “child-friendly” versions of regular pop songs — like Eddie Fisher’s “Dungaree Doll.” The lyrics of the kiddie version were about a literal doll.

And when I got a bit older, I became a big fan of the Beach Boys. Loved those car songs where you had to be a mechanic to understand the lyrics.

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[Mr. Laser Beam]

^ I give all the props to the Beach Boys, for producing a remake of California Dreamin' that is INFINITELY superior to the original. For several reasons: 1) The instrumentation, particularly the solo(s), is actually in tune. 2) The Beach Boys are way better singers, IMHO, than the Mamas and the Papas. 3) Repeat 1 and 2 until convinced.

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-ThPN8ZY4I[/yt]

 

[scotpens]

^^ Meh. Not the Beach Boys’ best work by a long shot. Overproduced, with too-heavy drums and sound effects, for Christ’s sake. I much prefer the haunting simplicity of the Mamas and the Papas’ original version.

YMMV.

 

[boobatuba]

^^ Meh. Not the Beach Boys’ best work by a long shot. Overproduced, with too-heavy drums and sound effects, for Christ’s sake. I much prefer the haunting simplicity of the Mamas and the Papas’ original version.

YMMV.

Agreed. The sax solo doesn't "fit" the tune as well for me as the flute solo in the original.

 

[propita]

I remember hearing "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head" and "Mrs. Robinson" on the radio when I was 5 yo.

My Dad taught us kids "I've Been Working on the Railroad" when we were little.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

My dad played albums by the Statler Brothers a lot (on the car stereo) when I was a kid. Also Gordon Lightfoot. To this day that's some of my favorite music.

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

^ I give all the props to the Beach Boys, for producing a remake of California Dreamin' that is INFINITELY superior to the original. For several reasons: 1) The instrumentation, particularly the solo(s), is actually in tune. 2) The Beach Boys are way better singers, IMHO, than the Mamas and the Papas. 3) Repeat 1 and 2 until convinced.

I really like the BB version better than the original, though I like all 3 versions I own (M&P, BB and America).

The video is cool in that John & Michelle appear in it. Also Roger McGuinn's 12 string guitar has a somewhat haunting feel to it in that song.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

My mother raised us in our early childhood with the belief that rock and roll was EVIL. It was cacophonous noise, NOT music, something that lesser people listened to. Possibly scary people. My earliest musical memory is of my sister and I playing this over and over on our little record player:

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctsWdUaHsHM[/yt]


Then one summer we were in Florida on vacation and it seemed that everywhere I went blaring out of the car radios of the lesser people at the campground was this incredible song.. that made me cry because I was old enough to know what it was about. It was very stirring and I could not get enough of it, like those kids whose parents don't allow sugar and when they show up at a birthday party they gorge themselves. It was my first non-classical love.

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FS2nW6w-sZQ[/yt]

Now listening to both of them some decades later the first one is deeply emotional to me and the second one is crap!

 

[Miss Chicken]

We had a LP of Peter and the Wolf that was music and narration.

And I agree that Billy Don't Be a Hero is crap.

My mother loved musicals and she had the LPs of her favourite ones. I remember that I loved the songs from Mary Poppins but didn't like those from The Sound of Music.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

I've never been able to sit through the Sound of Music, I am bored to death by it. Our family musical was My Fair Lady which we watched every time it came on tv.

 

[RJDiogenes]

The first songs that pop into my head from the 60s are "Holiday" and "Massachusetts" by the Bee Gees, "Something" by the Beatles, "Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head" by Andy Williams and, of course, "The Girl From Ipanema" by whoever that was. I also remember "Puff The Magic Dragon" from that time. In fact, that was about the time I started listening obsessively to Peter, Paul and Mary and Simon & Garfunkel, but that was more the early 70s.

 

[Miss Chicken]

I've never been able to sit through the Sound of Music, I am bored to death by it. Our family musical was My Fair Lady which we watched every time it came on tv.

I had no choice but to sit through The Sound of Music as my mother took us to the cinema to see it.

As a small child about 90% of the movies my mother took us to were musicals. Besides Sound of Music I remember seeing

My Fair Lady
Oliver!
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
Paint Your Wagon
Mary Poppins

I recently told this story at my mother's funeral.

She had eagerly been waiting to see Seven Brides for Seven Brothers on TV. Unfortunately about an hour before it was due to air our TV started to play up. Dad kept moving the aerial around to see if he could get a good picture but he couldn't. I sat down on the floor and the picture became perfect. I got up and moved away and the picture went all fuzzy. My Mum told me to sit back down and the picture was perfect but again when I stood up the picture went fuzzy. Mum then told my sisters to sit in the same place but the picture stayed bad. For some reason only I could be 'the aerial'. Mum decided I would be 'allowed' to stay up late and watch the movie. My sisters and brother had to go to bed. Mum bribed me with a meal of freshly picked field mushrooms and homegrown tomatoes on toast. I thought the movie was OK but I didn't like the songs.

 

[Sean Aaron]

Lots of good stuff jogging memory circuits that haven't been engaged in a long time, but far and away my favourite childhood album has to be Songs in the Key of Life by Stevie Wonder - I just wanted to hear that again and again. When Obama gave Stevie that award at the White House I was totally "Right On!" Harry Chapin's Taxi was another fave.

 

[trekkiedane]

I've never been able to sit through the Sound of Music, I am bored to death by it. Our family musical was My Fair Lady which we watched every time it came on tv.

Our 'family musicals' weren't really either 'family' or 'musicals'.... Mum is a big Elvis fan and I grew up with his music and films

Anyway, in 1967 (when I was three) Halfdan Rasmussen wrote rhymes for each of the 29 letters of the alphabet. They were published in a book with illustrations by Ib Spang Olsen and have ever since been a must in the library of all Danish children.

All kids loved these and we could even 'sing' the rhymes.

Sadly I really don't know where my first edition went -sis probably took it with her when she left home -but then my nephew would have had good use of it

(Much) later editions came with a CD though, and that might be where these two kids have their 'tunes' from:

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwHeCbCDmK0[/yt]​

Back in those days only very few people had 'stereos'; most music came from (predominantly mono) radios and that's where I remember hearing (and liking) these:

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-VrfadKbco&feature=related[/yt]

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSNSTerj2Kc[/yt]​

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

I've never been able to sit through the Sound of Music, I am bored to death by it. Our family musical was My Fair Lady which we watched every time it came on tv.

I had no choice but to sit through The Sound of Music as my mother took us to the cinema to see it.

As a small child about 90% of the movies my mother took us to were musicals. Besides Sound of Music I remember seeing

My Fair Lady
Oliver!
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
Paint Your Wagon
Mary Poppins

I recently told this story at my mother's funeral.

She had eagerly been waiting to see Seven Brides for Seven Brothers on TV. Unfortunately about an hour before it was due to air our TV started to play up. Dad kept moving the aerial around to see if he could get a good picture but he couldn't. I sat down on the floor and the picture became perfect. I got up and moved away and the picture went all fuzzy. My Mum told me to sit back down and the picture was perfect but again when I stood up the picture went fuzzy. Mum then told my sisters to sit in the same place but the picture stayed bad. For some reason only I could be 'the aerial'. Mum decided I would be 'allowed' to stay up late and watch the movie. My sisters and brother had to go to bed. Mum bribed me with a meal of freshly picked field mushrooms and homegrown tomatoes on toast. I thought the movie was OK but I didn't like the songs.

You bring back a lot of memories with the tv story Miss Chicken. We only ever had an ancient temperamental black and white tv. Everyone else in the street had color tv's but my mother believed color tv was full of radiation and it would kill you. My father actually worked as a tv camera man but there we were with a completely ancient set full of ghosts, snow and VERY demanding moments as to where you could sit in order to get any reception. My sister was the good aerial person who was needed on more than one occasion to sit or stand to the tv's demands so we could see it.

I still get a shock over the color in some TOS eps, probably because my multiple black and white viewings of it was at such an impressionable age.