A penny for my thoughts?
Today, I’m remembering the record collection my parents had when I was young. I loved music and would sing along with everything from the Singing Nuns (who knew my first French words would be “Il ne parle que du bon Dieu”?!) to Camelot (and what 6 year old shouldn’t be singing about the Lusty Month of May?!) to whatever else they had playing under that scratchy needle inside the giant stereo case my Dad had made to house the speakers, turntable, and – wait for it – the NEW cassette tape player.
But no matter what I listened to, I was always drawn back to the same album, the soundtrack from The Five Pennies. I didn’t know it then – and it was years before I ever saw the movie – but this musical is a semi-autobiographical story of Red Nichols (played by Danny Kaye) and his rise to jazz fame in the 20s. For some reason, this album was special for me. Maybe it was because a little girl grew up during it. Maybe it was the amazing voice of Louis Armstrong. Maybe it was just jazz. Whatever it was, there were a number of songs I played over and over and over again.
One was a bedtime song unlike one I’d ever heard: Lullaby in Ragtime. It intrigued me that its two parts could be sung at the same time – almost like a round. It was certinaly the most complex one I’d heard at that point. I’d sung my fair share of simple rounds by that age at Brownies and at school – Frere Jacques, London Bridge and the like. But this was different. The lyric made an impression on me too. The idea of falling asleep listening to “the rhythm of the river on the side of the boat,” or listening to music that was “as still as a trill from a thrush in a twilight hush,” that just sent my imagination into overdrive.
And if that weren’t enough, my other favourite song on the album – the self-titled Five Pennies fit on top of all of that as well. I loved the song’s simplicity on it’s own. The sentiment of it’s lyric – wishing on pennies – and the image in my head of the third penny glittering and glowing as it danced along spoke of hope and good things for the future. And to have it sung by a little girl ( Susan Gordon), with these two jazz greats was the icing on the cake. You can hear that trio here.
I sometimes wonder what musical memories my own kids will have. We belted out lots of broadway musicals on car trips. I think they know all the words in Wicked and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat. And in an amusing turn of deja vu, my “lusty month of May” became their “When you’re good to Mama, Mama’s good to you!”
But back to the pennies.
Long after the music lovers in my house transitioned to 8-track tapes then to cassette tapes and eventually to CDs, the music stayed with me. And so I decided early on that I would sing these songs to my own kids when I grew up. Kids decide all kinds of things, but this one stuck.
When my first was born, I started collecting pennies so he had his own five pennies from the year of his birth. I did the same when the next two came along. Those pennies are displayed in their rooms and I sang those songs to them every night at bedtime for years and years.
With the one cent coin out of circulation now, I’m glad I did it. And I think they are too. I know they like the pennies. Whether or not they remember the songs, it was a special time for me with each of them at the end of each day, introducing them to a different kind of music. And that I wouldn’t trade for the world.
Five Pennies
This little penny is to wish on
And make your wishes come true
This little penny is to dream on
Dream of all you can do
This little penny is a dancing penny
See how it glitters and it glows
Bright as a whistle
Light as a thistle
Quick, quick as a wink
Up on its twinkling toes
This little penny is to laugh on
To see that tears never fall
This little pennyIs the last little penny
Most important of all
For this penny is to love on
And where love is, heaven is there
So with just five pennies, if they’re these five pennies
You’ll be a millionaire
