I'm gettin' dizzy

Tonight I've been listenin' to some vinyl. Yeah baby. I think I mentioned a few posts back that Sis gave me her old record player. I so love this thing!!

For now the record player is perched rather precariously on my little hand-painted gingerbread man cart in my dining room. This record player is HUGE. So huge that sitting on that little metal cart, it reminds me of, I think it was Jeff Foxworthy, who talked about when he was a kid they put the television on a metal TV tray and if the kids pulled it over on 'em, well they'd only do that once. Yeah. I really need a table for that gargantuan thing. I want it out here in my office so I can chill with my records while I blog. It's like a melding of eras - records and blogging.

















Right now my collection is pretty limited. I have more John Denver than anything. And I'm okay with that. I have two Carpenters and I'm so happy I could cry. "Rainy Days and Mondays" and "Top of the World" - yeah. The only thing that would make me even more ecstatic is if I had "Close to You". Sadly, I don't. Yet. Christmas is coming ya know.

I have one Statler Brothers record as well. Now, keep in mind that my sister actually gave me one of her precious Statler Bros. records when she gave me the player. I was shocked. Bub had been buying her them in lots on eBay and the one she gave me she had three of. So it wasn't a huge personal sacrifice, but still, I was honored that she chose to bestow upon me a coveted Stats record. We are major Statler Brothers fans in this family. Sis has seen them in concert like, five times. Mom and Dad have seen them several times. I have only seen them a measly once, but then again, I'm not as die-hard a fan as Sis is. I was in the third row the time I saw them, though. That's gotta count for something.

















I managed to be the one that came out of Mom and Dad's divorce with the lullaby record. This record was actually Nana's and as kids, we listened to it any time we were at her house. Well, along with "YMCA", "Macho Man" and "Chicken Fat", which was an exercise record that we always played faster than it was supposed to play and nearly throw ourselves into cardiac arrest trying to do what the record said. Those were some good times. But the lullaby record - I loved that thing. This woman's voice, to this day, makes me sleepy.

Side one is her singing about a little boy and girl on a rainy day and all the things they do to keep themselves entertained till they could go outside. Nothing like what we did on rainy days; these kids did wholesome things like play with the toys they had been neglecting like a funny little monkey and a pretty ballerina. Yeah. They were total dorks, those kids, Bobby and Cindy, I think were their names. We really didn't listen to that side much. Even back then it was boring.

But side two . . . to this day causes my eyes to involuntarily close. I will never forget the day that my mom asked my Nana if she could take it home with us. We fell asleep on the couch for over a week because we just HAD to hear it every night. The whole second side is her narrating the journey of a Lullaby Train. The train starts in Great Britain and she sings a Welsh lullaby, then on to Norway, Spain, Germany, and France. The next song is a Jewish lullaby that was always my favorite. The album cover describes it as "haunting" and that is how I would have to describe it as well. It gives me the shivers - the good kind. After that it's an Italian lullaby and she finishes up with a lullaby she wrote her children.

The night we brought the records home, Sam was having a sleepover, so I told the girls they could listen to it in the living room. I told them how much I loved it as a kid and how none of the cousins could resist its magic. Abby, who is a tough, somewhat evil, nearly 9 year old, claimed that no stupid record was going to put her to sleep. She'd stay awake through the whole thing. Well, of course, Kady was out like a light. Abby played with my hair, thoroughly inspected all of my fingernails and their polish, twirled her own hair, and fidgeted until she finally just passed out. Cold. Even the evil one succumbed to its power. (Insert evil triumphant laugh here)




















BUT the pride and joy of my collection is this -






















Now, not only do I have it on CD, but I now have the record. I ROCK.


OOOH and look at the back cover -






Would you not just love to curl up next to the stud wearing that chain? Run your fingers through his curly chest hair and nuzzle his sideburns? Mmmmm . . . yeah.