Prompt: "A song that you'd share with your grandmother"
Selected by Pat
"When Irish Eyes Are Smiling"
Bing Crosby
When Irish Eyes Are Smiling, 1952
My grandmother Kitty passed away two weeks before I was born. My grandmother Virginia passed away my senior year of high school, but she lived several hours away, so I didn't see her as much as I should have. I never knew either of them as people. Yes, I had the chance to talk to Virginia, but I was a kid. She always asked about me and I didn't have the presence of mind to ask about her.
In order to find out where to even start with this prompt, I decided to ask my parents about my grandparents' musical tastes. There were a couple surprises in there. Both my parents specifically mentioned my grandparents got really into the Monkees. My mom told me her dad Walt was enough of a Beatles fan that he kicked my mom and my aunt off the TV to watch them on The Ed Sullivan Show. The mental image of my WWII vet grandfather turning off whatever Disney movie his daughters were watching so that he wouldn't miss "All My Loving" is very amusing to me. My dad recalled that his parents frequently played "Chicken Fat," which was specifically commissioned by the Kennedy administration for the Presidential Fitness Program. Why don't presidents commission bangers anymore? This country has lost its way.
The big, consistent answer was crooners: Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Perry Como. This is roughly what I expected. After all, all of my grandparents were children of the 40s. So if I'm picking a song to share with my grandmothers, I'm going with "When Irish Eyes Are Smiling" by Bing Crosby. For one, I know it would be up their alley. But more importantly, this was the song that played when I danced with my mom at my wedding. Neither of my grandmothers were there, but I imagine they would've liked to be.
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