Baby Sings

This morning I was seated next to a baby bundled up in a blue snowsuit and singing Frère Jacques. (The baby, not I.) My trip into work made me revisit the following High Security Incident that transpired many years ago.

Aged four and while in kindergarten, my teacher had us sing Frère Jacques. When done, she asked me to sing it alone and in front of the whole class.

I remember this as though it were yesterday. I smiled and began while clapping and swaying.

Beaming with pride (because I was the only one who was singled out), I sang at the top of my small not-yet-grown-to-size lungs:
Fray-row Jaack-uh!
Fray-row Jaack-uh!
Vous lay vous!
Vous lay vous!
Suh muh leh mateen-ah!
Suh muh leh mateen-ah!
DING! DANG! DONG!
DING! DANG! DONG!

Teacher asked me to stop singing and told me I was "wrong", to which I threw my 1inch fist into the air, palm facing her, and declared "Like hell I am, Teach", only it came out "why?" and I began to cry. Amidst the great confusion and my young black civil rights tendencies, all other pink, white, olive and brown babies located within the same room followed suit and also began to cry. The over-emotional one of them - a little white one from Poland - went so far as to run over and hug me (I often wonder what's become of him whose name I can't remember; he was my bff and on to the freezing cold ground we would place our 2x4 towels side-by-side when it was time for the teacher to have a cigarette break nap time. Bunch of fat babies laid out like beached dwarf whales, forced into REM. Odd indeed.).

Anyway. I was an Arabic baby and we'd arrived in Canada that same year. My mother tongue was Confused Arabic and the Teacher should have recognised that my effort was enough instead of singling me out for a "wrong". To my "why", Teacher never responded and I stood dissolved. Until now, I don't know the proper lyrics to the song and I've created an auditory block whereby I don't hear those proper lyrics even if they're being shouted directly into my ear. Worse still, the incident is - I am certain - the cause of my mental collapse re lyrical abilities, something of which I was reminded this morning.

Nearly twenty nine years later, I stand by Suh muh leh mateen-ah!, if for no other reason than the empathy shown by the little white Polish one.

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Aside no 1 re children's songs: I used to sing London bridges falling down, rather than London bridge is falling down. The true lyrics I swear to you, I only discovered while in Dubai this past December when my baby cousin Ahmed sang it to me. I was stunned as I had no idea it was only one bridge rather than all of the London bridges. Brilliant, yes?

Aside no 2 re Frère Jacques: He's 'Brother John' in English. Gives little French and English boys a complex, I would think...