A Spring in your Step and a Song in Your Heart!

“The Hills are Alive with the Sound of …” “I’ll be your Candle on the Water...” “Let me give you the low-down, I’m K-RA-ZY for you…” “There's a somebody I'm longing to see, I hope that he Turns out to be, Someone who'll watch over me.” “To love another person is to see the face of God.”

If you recognize these words, lyrics; then you have probably heard and seen at least one musical in your life. I have heard many and been part of a few too. I grew up in a house full of music. My mother was always part of the church choir and recruited me at about the age of eight (when I could sing soprano). My father couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket, at least as far as singing goes. But he did learn the accordion when he was younger, so he wanted to make sure that his children received some kind of musical training as well. My younger brother and I took piano lessons for many years and in school he took up violin and I learned the Trombone. I even played some in college (got a scholarship for it too). Music has always been there in my life.

As I was driving to work this morning my iPod decided to take me on a trip down memory lane by the song choices it made while on “random”. First was “Someone to watch over me”. There are a couple versions of this song on my iPod, this time it was the version by Sting from a George Gershwin compilation album. This is a song that I have known for a long time. When I was in eighth grade I was in the Jazz band at my Junior High, Mr. Stone was the director. We played this song for one of our concerts. I remember it because it was a song that featured an alto sax as the main melody and the rest of the ensemble to support and add fullness to the song. I thought it was great to see how my one part of 3rd Trombone joined with the other parts played by the other instruments to create such a beautiful song. Later when I was nineteen, a freshmen in college I had the opportunity to be part of a musical theatre performing group “Showtime Company”. I was part of the technical crew and we had the chance to tour the Northeast United States. We went to New Jersey, Massachusetts, Illinois, many other places, including New York City (I jaywalked across Times Square! - that’s another story). We had some free time and some of us went to Broadway shows. I went to two shows during our time there. “Crazy for You” was one that I attended. “Someone to Watch Over Me” was a song that was performed in that production (at a pretty pivotal plot point I should add). Good memories.

The other musical I attended was “Les Misérables”. By the time I was in NYC Les Mis had been on Broadway for a few years. My mother attended a performance by a traveling Les Mis company in Boise earlier that same year and she loved the music and bought the soundtrack. She knew I would enjoy it, so she encouraged me to listen to it, so I checked it out of the Ricks College library. She was right (as she usually was). When I was serving as missionary for the LDS church my Mother would send me letters with lyrics from Les Mis written on the envelopes. It was her way of encouraging me and showing that she loved me even though I was far from my family. The next song that my iPod played was “On My Own” from “Les Misérables”. It’s a wonderfully sad song that is so beautiful. Who hasn’t liked someone who had no idea that you felt that way (c’mon junior high crushes…).


The third song was from another musical that I have the soundtrack for on my iPod. This soundtrack and the music from the other two movies in this trilogy were added to iTunes so that I could put the songs on the kids’ iPod shuffles. The music is pretty good and I can’t help but like it. The song was “Just Wanna Be With You” from "High School Musical 3". Tammy took the older kids to see this when it came out last fall. That is when I added the soundtrack. So I had been listening to the songs, but had no idea how they worked within the story. I saw the movie this past weekend when my brother got an advanced copy from his work. Then the songs meant something to me because I knew where the songs fit into the plot and what they did to move the story along. It was fun watching this movie with the kids and seeing them react to the music, get excited and sing along as the story progressed. I treasure the times when we can sit together as a family and enjoy times like this. The kids are growing up and the time will come when they will be too busy to sit down with Mom and Dad and watch a movie, or it won’t be ‘cool’.

Every year when “The Sound of Music” is on TV, we are usually all together at my Father’s house (as we are most Sunday nights) and we watch and talk and have great time. My Dad has loved that musical for as long as I can remember, I guess that’s why I like it too. Who doesn’t like to see nuns sabotage the Nazi’s car?


This is a pretty long post. Sorry about that, but it’s in my blood. I am a talker. So when I hear a song on the iPod, it’s always more than just a song. It’s experiences and memories; life. You have them too.