DETOUR!
Did anyone else besides me just break into that catchy old tune, 🎶“Detour, there’s a muddy road ahead, detour!”
No? Well, I grew up with two older sisters and a brother, and our family did a fair bit of Sunday driving (back when Sunday drives were a thing), not to mention driving across the state or across the country to see friends and relatives. Whenever we saw a detour sign in our travels, we just had to sing that refrain! Talk about being inspired to sing—it was more like required to sing! It was like it was hard-wired into our brains and we could no more resist the pull of that tune than we could avoid the detour.
I’m not sure who sang the version of the Paul Westmoreland song that we got stuck in our heads—maybe Tex Ritter (the father of John Ritter and grandfather of Jason). I do know that there have been a lot of years and tons of detour signs since then.
Hard-wired is hard-wired. So to this day, or at least to a couple of weeks ago when it happened again, I break out in song whenever I see a Detour sign.
It’s probably not that uncommon in singing families. And we are a singing family! (I may have mentioned that before here, or maybe here,) We sang all the time growing up. We’d take a hymnal and start at the beginning, singing all the songs, whether we knew them or not. We loved Stamps-Baxter songs, many of which were written for quartets or groups, not necessarily intended for worship services. This gospel music typically had a little more pep and syncopation than songs in our church hymnal. At the time we used “Great Songs of the Church,” now affectionately known by many who used it simply as “the old blue book.” That’s how we learned to read music (shape notes preferred, just like Maria in Sound of Music—🎶“Do, a deer, a female deer…”). There were six of us, counting Mom and Dad, enough to sing four-part harmony with some left over.
I’m not sure I realized how much we “broke into song” when inspired by a word or phrase until my soon-to-be brother-in-law visited our family for the first time. We were playing games around the dining room table, and it seemed every other thing someone said would spark an impromptu song—in four-part harmony! I wish I had a recording of that particular time—but the memory is priceless.
Let me give you some examples, and you can let me know if these songs come to your mind as well! You can even sing along!
Someone might say, “What are your plans for tomorrow?” Uh oh, they don’t realize what they unleashed… because…
Me: 🎶”Tomorrow, tomorrow, I love ya, tomorrow…”
“If you’re not doing anything, let’s get together,” they say.
Me: 🎶”Let’s get together, yeah yeah yeah…”
My Parent Trap rendition is interrupted when someone says, “I need some help.”
Me: 🎶 “Help! I need somebody…help, not just anybody…”
Or maybe, 🎶 “Help me, Rhonda, help help me Rhonda!” Never mind that no one named Rhonda is in the vicinity. 🤷🏼♀️
How many of you can hear someone say, “Here I come,” without channeling Dolly Parton singing 🎶 “Here you come again…”? (You just sang it, didn’t you?)
This might lead to a friend asking, “Are you going?”
Me: 🎶 “Are you going to Scarborough Fair…”
It seems like an innocuous question coming up next: “Do you know…” But I might never know what it was they wanted to know if I know, because I’m too busy singing…
Me: 🎶 “Do you know where you’re going to…”
And then maybe you text: “I’m on my way!”
Me: 🎶 “I’m on my way, I don’t know where I’m going…”
Well duh, there’s the answer to the previous question—no, I don’t know where I’m going to! (Does that preposition there bother anyone else?)
But wherever I’m going, I need to drive safely. You know those road signs that announce your speed? If you’re a little over the limit, they sometimes just say, “Slow down!” (Ask me how I know…😬)
Me: 🎶”Slow down, you move too fast…” Anybody feeling’ groovy right about now?
It doesn’t even have to be the right words.
Your friend might say, “I had a hard time waking up today.”
Me: 🎶 “They say that waking up is hard to do…” Apologies to those for whom the original was their breakup song.
Ah well, life goes on.
Me: 🎶 “Ob-la-di, ob-la-da, life goes on, brah…”
So what’s the weather like where you live? Has it been cloudy?
Me: 🎶 “Cloudy…the skies are gray and white and cloudy…”
Or maybe it’s been windy…
Me: 🎶 “And Windy has stormy eyes that flash at the sound of lies…”
We haven’t had rain here in such a long time!
Me: 🎶 “It never rains in California…”
It’s just been sunny every day—in fact, it’s supposed to be 115° in a couple of days.
Me: 🎶 Sunny, yesterday my life was filled with rain…”
Well, actually, yesterday my life was filled with sunshine. Like every day for a couple of months now.
Me: 🎶 “Sunshine on my shoulders makes me happy…”
So I guess just go ahead and bring on those sunny days!
Me: 🎶 “Sunny day, sweepin’ the clouds away…”
Can you tell me how to get to Sesame Street? Or am I just dreaming?
Me: 🎶 “California dreamin’…on such a winter’s day!”
Make that a summer’s day…just dreaming of a winter’s day—when I will probably wish for summer again. 🙄
Me: 🎶 “Roll out those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer…”
Now maybe you don’t know any of these songs. But if you do, you’re probably having your own little impromptu concert, if only in your head. I say, grab a hairbrush and embrace it!
Me: 🎶 “Oh where is my hairbrush…?” One of my favorite Silly Songs with Larry in Veggie Tales. If you don’t know what Veggie Tales is, you’re missing some of the great videos of all times! Lots of Bible stories (and a few silly songs) told in kid-friendly style by vegetables (Junior Asparagus is my favorite). And they’re so much better than that little synopsis indicates! You kinda have to see it to believe it.
Conversation or visuals can also spark the music. We were listening to the classic “Rhapsody in Blue,” by George Gershwin, and my husband mentioned how much he liked the clarinet that was featured prominently.
Before he realized what he had inspired, I was singing, 🎶 “The clarinet, the clarinet goes doodle-doodle-doodle-det.” If you haven’t heard that fun round about instruments in the orchestra (cleverly called the Instrument Song or the Orchestra Song), you should watch this video. It’s really a fun song to group-sing!
Not one to be deterred from his original thought by my spontaneous solo, Richard continued to tell me what he had been about to say—about our friend who is an amazing clarinetist (I’m talkin’ about you, Tony). He told me Tony’s group once opened for Louis Armstrong! I was properly impressed. But closer to home, Tony entertained us with his clarinet for our family Christmas “talent show” one year. I can tell you firsthand, without a doubt, he does more than “doodle-doodle-doodle-det.”
Our little granddaughter has inherited the family musical inspirations, and I’m so proud! The other day a fly was annoying her mother, who said (as anyone would), “Shoo, fly!” Our girl promptly sang,
🎶”Shoo fly, don’t bother Mommy!”
…and now I’m singing…
🎶 Me: “Shoo fly pie, and apple pan dowdy makes your eyes light up, your tummy say howdy!”
But back to my adorable granddaughter. I also heard her mom tell her it was time to clean up, and our little angel sang, 🎶“Clean up, clean up, everybody do your share!” I will forever be thankful for that big, lovable, purple dinosaur Barney (Don’t judge. He was made for kids, not grownups, and he spreads kindness and love!). He also taught our girls the magic words, and to this day I can hear his purple-dinosaur voice echoing in my head:
🎶”Please and thank you, they’re called the magic words!” Can’t argue with success!
This is a little off-topic, but I also have a hard time hearing seagulls squawk without saying, “Mine? Mine? Mine?” You too? I imagine anyone who has watched “Finding Nemo” has the same response!
Apparently there are others who think like me—one of them posted this meme:
I could go on and on, but if I did I’d be at it all night…
🎶 “I could have danced all night…”
…so I’ll just say so long!
🎶 “So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen goodbye!”
Somebody stop me!
🎶 “Stop, in the name of love…”
What a delightful piece! And, yes, it is a common ailment – singing a tune prompted by an otherwise bland set of words in a conversation. And thanks for the reference to my own clarinet playing. Very nice of you!
Thanks, Tony, I’m so glad you liked it! Ken was the one who landed in the middle of the family musical that time I referred to. At first he thought we were “putting it on” for him. But no, that’s just the way we roll! I’m sure most musicians do the same thing, as you say. In fact, I meant to mention that there are games based on this idea—-like Spontuneous and Sing that Word. And you do play a mean clarinet! ☺️