same old song

Jim Croce sings a song called "The Ball of Kerrymuir." It's a bit off color, but pretty funny. In fact, in my younger years, I was known to serenade folks with it if I had a bit too much of the juice. It starts off with this verse:

Four and twenty virgins
Went down to Inverness
And when the ball was over
There were four and twenty less

I think this introduction pretty much sets the tone of the rest of the song. Each verse describe another party-goer and the trials, tribulations, and tricks performed during the ball of Kerrymuir. The one about the magician is brilliant, and hilarious.

My husband and I are Jim Croce fans, and always have been, and usually have music playing at our house. I like Croce's versions of "Roller Derby Queen" and Bob prefers the more romantic ones like "Operator." So often we'll stick in Croce's Greatest Hits as we're hanging out. When our oldest daughter was about 4 she loved that we played music because she loved to dance. We had no idea she ever listened to the words until one day we heard her singing the chorus to "The Ball of Kerrymuir" while she sat in the living room playing with Barbies. The chorus goes like this:

With your balls to your partner
Your ass against a wall
If you've never been out on a Saturday night
You've never been out at all.

Uh-oh. You can see why 1) I sang this in my younger years before I was a respectable matron and 2) why we took notice of our sweet redhead when she sang these words.

Hearing Hannah sing these words presented a bit of a dilemma. We assumed she didn't know the meaning of the words she was singing, or that those were "bad words" that she shouldn't be saying. So should we explain that we played music for our children that had dirty words in it? Or, should we just ignore it and smile and hope she didn't sing the song at school or for her Southern grandmother? We chose to ignore it and started playing other music with catchy phrases. By the time we went to Georgia that summer she was singing "Hooked on a Feeling" instead.

We were more careful with Ali, and tried to vary our musical choices during her impressionable years. She never sang "The Ball of Kerrymuir" although she could do a mean rendition of "The Battle of New Orleans."

Years passed and time diminished our caution. Our girls grew up mostly fine, with a good knowledge of classic music of the 70's and 80's. Jim Croce found his way back into our play list, and life was good.

All of this came rushing back to me the other day as I was in the kitchen and hear my 7 year old son singing a familiar tune. Could it be? It sure was. "The Ball of Kerrymuir" was back. I walked in to the living room so I could better hear what he was singing. I know my son, and I was sure that he was pretty proud of himself for picking up an actual song that had actual bad words in it. I could hear him saying to me, "But mom, it's the words to a song. And you play it all the time. It's not like I'm just saying bad words."

So I listened carefully and hear him sing:

With your back to your partner
Your back against the wall
If you've never been out on a Saturday night
You've never been out at all.

Whew. He got the words wrong! Immediately I felt relief, followed by the guilt of assuming the worst about my own offspring. He didn't know why I walked over and kissed the top of his head and looked at him sweetly. "Whatcha doing?" he asked.

"Nothing. I love you."

"I love you too Mama," he looked up at me with those big blue eyes, "farty-fart fart fart!"

I smiled. What else could I do?