livin' on a prayer

have i mentioned that i love carrie brownstein's blog at NPR? it's become one of the sites that i check every day. last week, she wrote what i thought was a really interesting post about the ways that people listen to music. i guess it was inspired by a friend's grandfather who had a really expensive audio system; she asked readers to send in pictures of whatever they used to listen to music the most. people sent in pictures of ipods, boomboxes, headphones, computers, televisions...

her newest post is about song lyrics that somehow become part of popular culture, particularly how words can make you want to sing certain melodies. the comments readers made were hilarious - after someone wrote that they always came home with livin on a prayer (bon jovi was my favorite band during middle school) in their heads, i am now singing that song (woah oh we're halfway there/ woah oh livin' on a prayer/ take my hand and we'll make it i swear)

three years ago, there was a boy in my class who always used to say "hey ho, let's go" before he put his nap mat away (this was also a boy who wore little death cab for cutie and KEXP t-shirts) so now i sing that little line in my head every afternoon when i come back from lunch. (and that's also why i laughed a little when i noticed that glen signed my ticket "hey ho!") everytime i make myself a cup of tea (which is actually often now, since shannon introduced me to a kind that i love), i sing to myself: "tea, a drink with jam and bread." and then i usually sing the rest of the song too. when someone asks me something that i find stupid, i think to myself "oh well, whatever, nevermind." does anyone know what that is from?

her post also got me to thinking about music and education. when i worked in tacoma, the other kindergarten teachers and i went to a workshop by a woman who put all of her lessons to music; we got a few of her cd's and i still have them. she also had a cd of self esteem music, and there are a couple of songs that the kids in my class love (i haven't played them in awhile actually, maybe i should tomorrow) - i'm a grump and wonderful me. i've noticed that the kids (and me) are in much better moods when we sing and listen to music. sometimes when they're not listening i just make up a stupid song and it catches their attention.