No deeds to do, no promises to keep!

 

What do you do when you wake up way too early on a Saturday morning?  Why, you lie quietly in bed (trying not to toss and turn and wake up your still sleeping husband) and think about which favorite thing to bring to the party at Mockingbird Hill Cottage's Favorite Thing Saturday!  My mind went a hundred different directions and then finally settled on this:

First album I ever bought!!

Why, you ask?  Maybe it's because this is the first album I ever bought with my own money, saving up babysitting dollars until I had enough to purchase this album, which is still stacked in my audio cabinet along with my Beatles, Carole King and James Taylor LP albums.  I was on a Job's Daughters weekend trip to a different city and my girlfriend Barb and I walked downtown to a record store where I carefully chose it.  I felt so darn grown up! 

Or maybe it's because forty years later, Simon and Garfunkel are STILL my 'default' music selection--if I'm restless and not sure what I want to hear, I always end up choosing one of their albums.  How can your heart not lift to the beautiful piano opening in Bridge over Troubled Waters?  How can your feet not want to dance to the infectious lilt of Feelin' Groovy?  Whenever I think of junior high p.e. (and believe me, I try really really hard to never ever think about p.e. and our navy blue bloomers!!) I remember choosing For Emily, Wherever I May Find Her as the song for my gymnastics floor exercise.  I wish I could say my tumbling matched the gracefulness of the song, but sadly, it did not.  (The picture below is NOT me, because not in my wildest moment would I ever consider showing a junior high picture of me in my p.e. bloomers!  It does, however, show exactly what we were forced to wear.  Ick.)

Or perhaps it is because in 8th grade English class my wonderful teacher, Mr. Struckman, taught us that lyrics were poetry.  Somehow or other, I had missed that connection!  I had studied poetry and even memorized a few pieces, but learning that the lyrics of Simon and Garfunkel were actually poems was a revelation.  And ever since then, that has been my standard for music lyrics--it it doesn't make sense as a poem I am probably not going to like it! 

I'd listen to A Dangling Conversation and I couldn't wait to be an adult and sit in a room reading  Emily Dickinson while my husband read Robert Frost (I didn't quite understand that this was actually a really sad song when I was 13!).  I remember watching as my parents and their friends all grew older together, thinking how fitting the wistful Old Friends/Bookends lyrics were for the old friends, winter companions, in a time of innocence.  I wanted to board a bus and go off in search of America.  I learned to appreciate the architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright because of Simon and Garfunkel.  

And now it's a Saturday morning and we all need a little fun in our lives this weekend, so here is one of my favorite Simon and Garfunkel lyrics/poems, guaranteed to make you smile!

Slow down, you move too fast
You've got to make the morning last
Just kicking down the cobblestones
Looking for fun and feeling groovy
Ba da da da da da da, feeling groovy
Hello lampost, what'cha knowing
I've come to watch your flowers growin'
Ain'tcha got no rhymes for me
Doo-it in doo doo, feeling groovy
Ba da da da da da da, feeling groovy
I got no deeds to do
No promises to keep
I'm dappled and drowsy and ready to sleep
Let the morningtime drop all its petals on me
Life I love you, all is groovy 

You can check out more groovy posts this weekend at:
http://mockingbirdhillcottage.com/