Tuesday, January 31, 2017

Do not try this while driving

I was driving Younger Daughter home from somewhere when she started singing reverently, “Old MacDonald had a farm, E-I-E-I-O.”  It was reverent because she was singing the tune of “Amazing Grace.”  So, in fact, it was anything but reverent.

I thought, “You’d better not let The Church Lady hear you singing that.”  And then I thought, “But wait, this could be a good thing.”  A good irreverent hymn sing is something I need right now.

As we sat in traffic, we belted out, “There was a farmer had a dog, and Bingo was his name-o!” to the tune of “Joy to the World.” 

It turns out this is a challenging intellectual exercise.  The brain says, “Nooo way.  These words do not go with this tune,” especially when the meter does not fit.  

Here is our singlist (it was a long drive home):

Lyrics                                                              Tune
Old MacDonald                                            Amazing Grace
Bingo (B-I-NGO)                                            Joy to the World
Ring Around the Rosie                                Silent Night
Farmer in the Dell                                       The Star Spangled Banner
Itsy Bitsy Spider                                           O Holy Night
Row, Row, Row your Boat                           God Bless America
Take Me Out to the Ball Game                  Lift Up Your Heads, Ye Mighty Gates

We had to sing “merrily” five times in order to make it fit into “God Bless America”.


One could have a discussion on whether God is blessing America right now, but God blessed us because we made it home without crashing, despite the driver devoting most of her brain power to singing disparate lyrics to the wrong tunes.  It felt good.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

IMPRESSIVE application of brain power! I don't believe I could keep the different words in the wrong tune.

Karen (formerly kcinnova) said...

I just tried it, and I only made it through "gently down the stream" on Row, Row, Row Your Boat. I couldn't even manage the other songs. You have an impressive brain!