Let’s (Not) Call the Whole Thing Off – We’re Having Too Much Fun!
pamelamyers | May 17, 2015
We always try to play music for Sam when we can and not just kid music. I mean, it’s ok, but honestly, I would rather she gain an appreciation for music not made for toddlers. They get enough of those songs in school. Mark and I don’t play as much music as we’d like, but we do try. We play all kinds of things from rock to alternative, to jazz, to standards. She has learned to love Michael Jackson, Frank Sinatra, Mazzy Star, Billie Holliday, 70s folk rock, the Foo Fighters and more. We tend to put music on in the car when she won’t stop talking and Mark and I are trying to have a conversation. Occasionally, she hears a song she really likes and asks us to play it again and again. One of them was Suzanne by Hope Sandoval. Check it out if you never heard it. The other was, Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off, sung by Ella Fitzgerald and Louie Armstrong. Well, that one, we must have played a million times. Sam is trying so hard to learn the words. There are some parts she sings so well, in her adorable little girl voice. She likes when I sing with her. We, of course, do the tomato, to-mah-to part often, but she also asks me to sing the “ice cream part”. I am not sure, frankly, if this is specific to the Ella/Louie version, but it goes like this:
You like vanilla,
I like va-Nell-a,
You sarsparilla,
I sarspar-Ella,
Vanilla,
Va-Nell-a,
Aw, chocolate, strawberry!
Let’s call the whole thing off!
I love singing this with my girl. We are going to keep practicing. She is getting good and she knows so many of the words. A duet is in our future! We’ll be famous!
One other song we played was I’ve Got My Love to Keep Me Warm. Sam thought she was saying she had her “glove” to keep her warm. Sam said, “Why does she just have one glove to keep her warm?” When I corrected her and told her it was “love,” Sam just looked at me, paused, and then said, “Well…that’s just weird.” Love it.
