05/10/2026
COFFEE WITH KATIE!
We hosted a birthday party yesterday & in our typical family fashion, sang the most off key rendition of Happy Birthday that’s ever been sung. I don’t usually think much about it but last night, I lay in bed replaying the terrible “music” we record every birthday celebration & thought about how much music infiltrates our lives without thinking about it.
Sure, we all listen to music in the car, while doing yard work, etc., but I guess I’ve never really thought about how much we sing in our lives to add purpose or value. I was like, “Duh, this has been going on for the existence of mankind, Katie.” I’ve just gone through life singing, “Ring Around the Rosie”, “Happy Birthday”, “Jingle Bells”, Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star”, The National Anthem, & so on, in total oblivion.
I went into deep thought that I’m sure most people have already had: that so many of those songs came from a place of purpose I haven’t really put weight to.
I could research & write about all of the things I’ll be googling today because I will be fixated but I’ll refrain from boring you on social media- but it’s interesting to me how these everyday things we do have such meaning.
Now, I can’t say for sure that “Ring Around the Rosie” has a cryptic meaning about disease & death but if it does, think about how people in that time found a way to write a song about it & children still(I think) sing it. Or singing a lullaby to a child at night. We have all the technology in the world to have something to do that for us(thanks, internet & Google) but we still lull (or scar) children with lullabies written when none of that existed & used song to soothe a child to sleep. Celebrations weren’t full of gifts, videos, extravagance, they had songs & tradition; some we still sing today to bring us together & celebrate.
Song has less than uplifting history as well. Slaves used to sing songs in the cotton fields to pace time, communicate & endure in their miserable, awful, situation. Songs like, “Cotton Field”, written by Huddie Ledbetter, in the 1940’s, were written about this tradition & has been covered by CCR, The Beach Boys & Charley Pride.
Death marks tradition for song and music. It celebrates the life & death of a person & began long before the photo slideshow.
Here I go, driveling on. I’ll end there by saying I hope that your visits to Hey Nonny brings joy or meaning as music should & maybe you could make Hey Nonny visits a tradition for you & your family.
