So, since Dillon's been a baby, he's had this mix cd that I made for him of slow bedtime songs, stuff like 'the Rainbow Connection', 'Seasons of Love', 'Somewhere Out There', 'Goodnight My Someone', etc… Think musicals and kids' movie themes. And the fourth song on the disk is the song, 'Tomorrow' from Annie. It was one of my all-time favorites when I was a kid, I knew every song from the musical, and my dad has a funny story about absent-mindedly whistling it while walking into a courtroom and the judge commisserating that he also had an eight-year-old daughter. I used to listen to the record non-stop that year, and probably drove my parents up the wall.
Anyway, I put the song on Dillon's cd, which he has taken to listening to while going to sleep. He didn't actually used to, he finished the 'music-to-sleep-thing' when we were still living at Fratney, but we thought it might help him get used to noise in the room with him which would inevitably occur when sharing a room with his little sister. So for the past two or three months it's been this music at bedtime, and this has continued with Rose coming home.
Well, tonight, I'm sitting on her bed, rubbing her back, trying to get her to go to sleep, and singing along with the cd. And Rose starts singing with me, not entirely clear as a bell, but definitely recognizable, "tomorrow, tomorrow i love you, tomorrow ma-na-nah ma-nay a-nay". It was fantastic. I don't know how the greater adoption community feels about Annie (or Oliver! for that matter, I have 'Where is Love' from that musical, and Les Misrables 'Castle on a Cloud' on there too…) Not really sure why I put so many songs sung by musically-gifted orphans on this cd, which I made like five years ago, I'll have to find out if I'm ruining my daughter by having her listen to them.
Hi Molly,
Saw this and thought it might interest you regarding the artistic orphans.
xxooo
Patti
Dweebs on Disney: Orphans are the New Black
Nuclear families? So over
By Sarah Wolf
April 22, 2005
Somewhere in the bowls of the Disney archive, there has to be a memo from Walt to the nine old men outlining the standard Disney character. After listing standard traits (plucky, can carry a tune, talks with woodland creatures), I imagine it has a final caveat: “Also, must be orphaned; raised by a single parent is acceptable, as long as said parent is of the wicked stepmother variety.”
Orphans, in other words, are in, and have been since the start.
The tradition of the plucky orphan has probably been with us since the cavemen sat around the fire, gnawed on roast mastodon and swapped stories. You’ve got your Moses, your King Arthurs, your Remuses and Romulii. You’ve got the disadvantaged youth triumphing against all odds, and what’s more disadvantaged than being all alone in the world?
It’s a compelling what-if for those safe in their snug nuclear families. What odds would a boy or girl have to surmount to become a man or woman?
Short answer: not much. A petty disagreement, maybe a thousand years of royal law, or a vengeful woman of middle years coming to grips with her mortality pre-Botox. Oh, and show tunes.
Orphans have to improvise, they have to manipulate their environment, work the system and show some pluck to survive. That’s interesting, baby.
I’ve always been intrigued by the orphaned Disney character mystique; even when the characters aren’t technically orphans (Sleeping Beauty was raised by a murder of fairies, the Hayley Mills characters in The Parent Trap). In the magical world of Disney, the loss of at least one parent equals plucky.
And damnit, I want to be plucky, but there’s no getting around it. My parents are alive and married to each other (gee, thanks). I’m slogging through happily ever after, and I can’t sing. My best bet? Die in childbirth, give the next generation a shot at Disney glory.