My Childhood Nightmare Came True
Learning to face the music, one song at a time
In my family’s soundless Super-8 home movies, I can see my story. I see it in the snippet where I’m a baby, my plump body beside a large speaker, rocking rhythmically. I recognize it in another clip from my babyhood where I’m sitting at my mother’s feet, grasping at her music stand as she plays the guitar.
It’s clear: I have always loved music.
My parents sang to me often throughout my childhood. My mother sang such songs as “Way Up in the Sky, the Little Birds Fly,” “A Bicycle Built for Two,” and “I Love You a Bushel and a Peck.” My dad sang show tunes, Beatles, Beach Boys, Billy Joel, Frank Sinatra, Cole Porter — everything from the songs he grew up with to the songs that were currently on the radio.
With this vast repertoire of songs in my head, I sang at home all the time. I sang along with the hits on Casey Kasem’s American Top 40. I sang with my parents. I made up my own songs about such subjects as my turtle, clean dishes in the dishwasher, and a made-up character named Mrs. Mousie.
But if a group was singing in public — in church or at a party, or even at a small gathering with my parents’ friends — my mouth might as well have been stitched shut. I remember a few times being at a school gathering or…
