3V112401 Singing: quiet activities of self-construction (2/19)81)

Peggy’s repertoire of songs is sometimes surprising. On her recent trip to Boston with Robby, I found she knew a bit of ‘The cat came back’ (A song I know not but Robby does know, perhaps from a Disney program).

This afternoon, Peggy sat singing quietly to herself on the couch, ‘Oh dear, what can the matter be’ and ‘I want my shirt’ – the latter from the Marx’s Brothers’ movie ‘Coconuts’ (which she has never seen) was modified to ‘I want my Mimi.’ The former song was the more interesting because it has a story line, which Peggy got right, even though she has no regular melody (what appeared was just a varying pitch) and no regular, complete surface text. That is, she made up the ‘song’ out of its story elements and fragments of text such as ‘what is the matter’ and ‘at the fair’ (to her, this is probably Jacob’s Beach).

This is an example, not surprising in itself, of how Peggy’s mind is active, amusing herself, in quiet constructive ways.

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