Lately, I’ve been musing on my choice of shower songs and worrying a bit about what they might say about me. I’ve found lists of the most popular shower songs on the internet and none of them make it into my repertoire. Mine seem to be dredged up from the far reaches of my mind or maybe my past and there’s no rhyme or reason to my choices.
If you tried to make sense of my shower collection, you might say that some days I seem to be oriented toward the future, other days to the past, resulting in either “Tomorrow” from Annie or “Yesterday” by the Beatles. Other days I seem to be more sentimental or maybe melancholy, gravitating toward “Sunrise, Sunset” from Fiddler on the Roof or “Where Have All the Flowers Gone.” Occasionally old church songs from my youth will surface, particularly “Lord of the Dance,” which is odd, because that was not a standard in most Catholic masses. I should pay attention to whether those church songs pop up on Sundays. That might be telling. And what does it say about my happy marriage that I so often sing “Matchmaker, Matchmaker”?
I think what fascinates me the most is that I don’t sing contemporary songs in the shower, although I’m known to crank up new favorites when I hear them on the radio. I have no idea why they don’t make it into the shower. I’m also intrigued that I tend to sing songs that would not be found on any of my “favorite songs” playlists. In fact, some of my shower songs are by artists of whom I would not describe myself as a fan. For example, one of my stand-bys is “Isn’t She Lovely” by Stevie Wonder, though I’ve never considered myself much of a Wonder fan.
The one that baffles (and embarrasses) me the most, though, is my penchant for singing “I’m Henry the VIII, I Am,” by Herman’s Hermits. What a truly bizarre song to have stuck in one’s head for decades. I try to convince myself there’s an intellectual reason I gravitate toward that insanely ridiculous song; that it’s a subliminal connection to my love and pursuit of knowledge regarding British history (I almost went to grad school to study just that). What other reason could there be, right?
If you look at my shower playlist, there’s really only one true conclusion: my brother was right. I’m a hopeless nerd.
Interestingly, my husband never sings in the shower. I think that’s kinda sad. I mean, with those acoustics, you’ll never sound better no matter what you sing. And even the melancholy songs, when combined with soft light and warm water, can make you feel so good. So I suppose I needn’t worry about my odd choices. Not everything in life needs to tell us something deeper about ourselves. It’s like I’ve said before, make no apologies for the art you love, even if your shower song is even dumber than “I’m Henry the VIII, I Am” (is that possible?)
By Teresa R. Funke
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