My dad used to sing to me when I was in my crib, and I have an image in my head of him leaning over and singing, but I don't know whether I'm really remembering that or whether I've just been told that he did that and I've "created" the memory.* In any event, there are two songs in particular that I remember him singing, but I can recall only a snippet of each. The first was this:
The bells began to ring-o when he saw the rose of Juarez
Conchita Marquita Lolita Pepita Rosita Juanita Lopez
which a little Googling reveals was written by Herbert Magidson and sung by Glenn Miller and Bing Crosby, among others. The other is this:
I'm saving my money to buy you a rainbow
A rainbow, to put on your finger
And after I've bought you that rainbow
I'll go out and I'll buy you the moon
by someone named Russ Hamilton.
So, now that I've gone and told you about these old songs that I can remember, I can no longer recall how this topic popped into my head. Dang short-term memory.
*The famous child psychologist Jean Piaget had a vivid childhood memory of running from his nanny in a crowded piazza and how scared he was when he found that he was lost. It wasn't until he was an adult that he learned that the incident never happened; his nanny had told it to him as a way to make him stay close to her, and it worked. The more she said, "Remember that time when you got lost?" the more he believed it. Unfortunately, this same issue has come up in child abuse cases when kids' memories are questioned or tampered with.
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