Mom Music

My mother, like me, can’t sing. I mean, we really can’t sing. My little sister, bless her, can.

My mother likes to say that she had always dreamt of having children because, she figured, she could sing to them. They wouldn’t know any better. They would love her voice because it was their mothers. “On key” wouldn’t matter to these hypothetical children. Unfortunately for my mom, her actual children and her imagined differed. While she and I had two and half good years of off-key rock out parties, tuneless lullabies and not-quite-right sing-alongs, this changed with the birth of my little sister. My mother says that it only took Rachel two years to get up the gumption to cover her mouth during a serenade, “Mama. Don’t sing.”

Not that it really stopped her, though I guess it must’ve crushed her fantasy. My mom sang all through my childhood. She used to sing to me when she put me to sleep, laying next to me in my handed-down double bed. My dad sang, too. Not traditional lullabies, though. My favorite was the Little Red Caboose song (though I’ll admit that Sweet Honey in the Rock does it better). But she also sang Raffi classics and James Taylor’s greatest hits.

Those almost-lullabies, lovely as they were, aren’t the music I associate most closely with my mother. My parents, as a set, love music. They were New Wave-ers in New York before my birth, all through my childhood there were shelves and shelves of sacred alphabetized records (eventually replaced with sacred alphabetized CDs), cases of cassettes with handwritten labels. Mostly, they agree on music, but there is some that lives solely in the sphere of my mother.

Nick LoweHall and OatesPaul SimonBonnie RaitJames Taylor and Lyle Lovett. Blues-y, good hooks, a little twang. My mother used to clean our house with “I Knew the Bride (When She Used to Rock and Roll)” turned up to fall volume. I remember painting at my kitchen easel while she made dinner to “Private Eyes”. We used to hold imaginary microphones and sing (off-key) to each other. I have a very clear memory of the two of us waiting for my dad to finish and errand and singing an a cappella version of “Fire and Rain”.

Eventually, as I grew up, my sister and I developed our own musical taste. My ever-accommodating parents let us pick the music in the car and we stopped paying attention to what they were listening to. But still, my mother’s music is as familiar to me as my mother. I know all of the lyrics intuitively, the way I know how to get to my elementary school or, really, how to read. I don’t remember learning these things – they’re just a part of me.

A few years back, I splurged to buy myself several CDs that reminded me of my mother. Made myself a little “Mom music” playlist in the iTunes so that I can listen to it when I clean my house, or just when I went to sing-off-key un-selfconsciously.

Almost like being a rockstar yourself

Once, in Amsterdam, I met Jenny Lewis. Its probably my closest brush with fame. And for geeky me, it could not have been better.

I started listening to Rilo Kiley in high school. Discovered them the way I discovered a lot of music then, one download leads to another kind of a thing. It was the days of Napster and I had a motley collection of music from “Take Offs and Landings” and “Intial Friend”. Eventually I loved them so much, I bought “Take Offs and Landings” from the Barsuk Record site (and a Barsuk hoodie, actually, which would later win me points with Death Cab fans).

I love Jenny’s voice and the bittersweet, sometimes cynical lyrics. In college, I started putting “The Frug” on every dance mix I made. But they were still mostly touring on the West Coast and the one time they came to New York, I missed them. Still, I’ve never seen them live. (And to be honest, I’m not sure I really want to. This new album doesn’t rock my world the same way the older ones did. But that’s another story.)

Anyway, I was in Amsterdam during part of my Junior year Bohemian-Quest-For-Self through Europe. I was in Amsterdam more than once during that particular foray and I seem to remember this being later in my trip. I was walking through the bustling Leidseplein towards my Vondelpark hostel when a tall woman approached me.

“Excuse me? Do you speak English?”

I smiled and said, “Yeah, I do.” In my American accent. And we both laughed.

She needed to know how to get to the Van Gogh museum. Since I was waking that way anyway, I offered to take her. We talked about our mutual love of Van Gogh, the tragedy of his life, Theo’s letters and Love in the Time of Cholera. She asked me what I was doing in Europe. I told her and she complimented my bravery. I asked her and she told me about her band, the show they had played the night before.

The way she was talking, you’d think it was a garage band. Some little project going nowhere. A cheap way to see Europe, opening for bands that really mattered. So I didn’t even ask. It didn’t cross my mind, you know? But before I left her, a few blocks from the Van Gogh, I said, “Hey what’s the name of your band?” Because she was so nice I thought I ought to check out her music.

“Its called,um, Rilo? Kiley?” Seriously. Like a teenage girl, with every word a question. Like maybe I would think it was stupid.

“Oh my god.” I must have gone white, “You’re Jenny Lewis. Oh my god.”

“Oh you know my band!” All sincere and adorable.

“I, um. I brought only twelve CDs to Europe with me. And two of them are yours. I love your band.”

It’s probably better I didn’t ask her who she was earlier. I don’t think I could have carried on a coherent conversation with a woman whose music had moved me so easily through break-ups and new loves. I don’t think I would’ve have talked about Theo Van Gogh so much or worried about my hair so little. So it was better this way and I got a pretty good story out of it, too.