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Wednesday, May 13, 2015

"Make Your Own Kind of Music"

I was reading & writing online tonight while "The Middle" (starring Patricia Heaton of "Everybody Loves Raymond") played on the TV in the background. I can't say I'm a huge fan of the show, but we often have it on in lieu of anything else more interesting. To be truthful, I find most of the characters annoying -- and the character of Sue, the awkward but eternally enthusiastic middle child/only daughter, downright cringeworthy at times. (Perhaps because she reminds me just a wee bit too much of another awkward teenaged girl I knew a few decades ago? ;) )

Well, in tonight's season finale, Sue graduated from high school. And while disaster loomed (as usual), everything turned out all right in the end, and we were treated to a Sue montage -- set to a very familiar (to me) song.

I remember it as the theme song (& title) of The Carpenters' summer replacement TV series back in the early 1970s... but this wasn't Karen Carpenter singing. A quick search (what on earth did we do before Google??) revealed that it was written by Barry Mann & Cynthia Weil, first recorded in 1968 and popularized a year later by Mama Cass Elliott (of the Mamas & the Papas -- the singer I was trying to identify). 

Next, I Googled the full lyrics. And I smiled. (Remember, this was the late '60s/early '70s...!)

Make Your Own Kind of Music

Nobody can tell ya
There's only one song worth singing
They may try and sell ya
Cause it hangs them up
To see someone like you
 
But you gotta make your own kind of music
Sing your own special song
Make your own kind of music
Even if nobody else sings along
 
You're gonna be nowhere
The loneliest kind of lonely
It may be rough going
Just to do your thing's the hardest thing to do
 
But you've gotta make your own kind of music
Sing your own special song
Make your own kind of music
Even if nobody else sings along
 
So if you cannot take my hand
And if you must be going, I will understand
 
You gotta make your own kind of music
Sing your own special song
Make your own kind of music
Even if nobody else sings along
 
You gotta make your own kind of music
Sing your own special song
Make your own kind music
Even if nobody else sings along
 
For the record -- I was singing along, lol.  And it struck me that, while the lyrics were certainly appropriate for the character of Sue -- a one-of-a-kind character if there ever was one -- they also fit the situation of those of us who are on this "road less travelled:" "They" may try to tell us that there's only one song worth singing (i.e., parenthood) -- and seeing people like us who flout convention certainly seems to "hang up"/bother some people, doesn't it?

It's lonely, it's rough, doing our own thing, being different from the majority (especially when it's not what we wanted in the first place). But we have to do what we know is right for us. (And it's so nice that more & more people like us are finding their voices and singing along, isn't it?) 

Here's the late, great Mama Cass: 

5 comments:

  1. Loved this marching anthem for infertility survivors! Making our own music is hard -- but we are not alone.

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  2. I so relate to this post! First, I wish I had a singing voice as expressives as Mama Cass or as angelic as Karen Carpenter. There is a song that sticks in my head every time I think about our journey...At Seventeen, I believe is the song title. I heard it in on the car radio the other day. It starts, "I learned the truth at Seventeen..." I used to do word swaps when the mommy mania was at its peak...

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    1. I remember that one too, Pamela... Janis Ian, 1975. I was 14 & we had just moved to a new place where I felt completely out of place. Yes, that one fits too!

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  3. I remember hearing this song as a child, but thank you for reintroducing me. And it certainly is a fitting anthem for you and all infertility survivors.

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  4. I've never looked at these lyrics, but they are perfect. Fortunately, here on the blogosphere, there are plenty of us singing along these days.

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