Thursday, September 16, 2010

Sad Songs

Anyone who knows me knows that I'm a complete cry baby. I will cry at anything, ANYTHING. Especially bad for me are commercials for telephone companies (you know the sort with the grown child calling home to mama in Italy), children's stories (The Happy Prince and don't get me started on The Little Matchstick Girl) and sad songs.

There are some songs that it doesn't matter how many times I hear them I lose it . . . Bwaaaaahhhh!


Okkervil River's John Allyn Smith Sails 
Iron and Wine's Naked as we Came 
Iron and Wine / Calexico Dead Man's Will 


(Actually a LOT of Iron and Wine has me teary . . . I love him so! He could read the phone book and I'd listen completely enraptured and soggy with tears).

So anyway, the other day my little guy came out of school with a very serious look on his face.

I asked, "What's wrong?"

He said, "Can't tell you till we get far enough away from school". . . I was worried (remember the haircut? Kids can be cruel about such things).

We walked halfway home and he decided that it was enough distance and told me that the teacher had been playing some songs for the class while they worked. There was one song that was partly in Spanish and partly in English about a cat. He was enjoying it immensely (I've mentioned before he LOVES cats). That was until the part where the, "cat falls off the roof, breaks his solar plexus and dies". . . he cried his little eyes out telling me about it. And you can bet I cried too. The two of us sniffling away outside the fruit and vege shop and Astrid looking at us in a perplexed way (she only cries when she's really ANGRY).

He described the song so well that I found it; SeƱor Don Gato . He doesn't believe the last line about him returning to life.

He had sat quietly in his seat during class and cried without anyone seeing him and then had cried on and off discretely at school whenever he thought about it. He was inconsolable.

Poor little guy has inherited my BooHoo gene . . . Astrid appears safe however.

2 comments:

  1. That's funny,not in a humorous way but -you know I am prone to tears too, So is Bantam Boy, just quietly as 19 year old boys are not keen to have this known and Chicky Babe was much like Astrid, in touch with her anger!
    The other day at school we had a cultural exchange with a performing group from indonesia they sang an old islander song that Dad used to sing to us when we were kids. It was a bit tricky being caught out like that crying at a school concert, I don't think too many people noticed though!

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  2. Yes, I'm sure 19 year olds would rather not have that exposed (I won't tell).

    I cried at Linus's assembly the other day because they sang "Puff the Magic Dragon"... that was embarrassing. Lucky it was just a little watery eye instead of the "ugly cry".

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