Singing pom pom pom

Singing was a big part of my childhood. Mum has a beautiful, beautiful soprano voice. She still sings in a choir. Dad sang in the choir too, but I remember him more for the Aussie bush songs and funny songs and melancholy songs he'd sing on long car trips and on bushwalks.

Sadly, I did not inherit any singing abilities whatsoever. From age 12 to age 35, the only time I ever sang willingly was at clubs and concerts, where the music was too loud for anyone to hear me anyway.

And then I had Téo.

From the first night I had him with me in the hospital, the only thing I could think of to try and settle him was to sing. And the only songs I knew were those that dad had sung. So that night, and many, many nights afterwards, I sang Waltzing Matilda, and Road to Gundagai, and Five Miles from Gundagai, and Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree. And then songs about old Jindabyne being flooded when the Snowy River was dammed. And then one about careless love leading to pregnancies out of wedlock, and another about calves being easily slaughtered. And finally, one about a lobster that grabs hold of a woman's pink bits and is then whacked to death by the husband, giving the wife quite a thrill.

I had never sung so much in my life. My throat hurt. I struggled to hold the tune on some. But I kept singing.

I'm still at it. My reportoire has expanded to include more traditional nursery rhymes and lullabies, but still, on long car trips, I fall back on the songs my dad sang to us. They're even less relevant to my kids than they were to me, coming from both a different time AND a different place (although a line from one song about damming the Snowy River, Give me bulldozers and tractors and hoses and diesels to ease all your troubles away, is still pretty perfect for Téo) - but it's all I can offer.

And I can't help thinking how proud dad would have been to hear Téo today:

Singing pom diddly om
pom pom pom
Never let your pom poms pom pa pom pa pom


(I know this means nothing to most of my readers, sorry. It's the chorus of the song about the lobster, which Dad was famous for. It's a bit crude, and he sent my parents' generation into hysterics singing it with the rude words replaced by "pom". Lyrics to one uncensored version (not exactly Dad's) are here.)