The Longest Shortest Time

This Record Has a Movie?!

One of the things that has made me most excited about having a child is the idea that I will have a lifetime of being able to share some of my favorites things with her: books, movies, music. Like dating someone new. Sasha turned three this week, and she is finally hitting an age where I can start to turn her on to media that is for a slightly more mature audience than the baby set.

Mary Poppins was our first success, and I have to say I think her love of Mary, Burt, Jane, and Michael have made me love them even more. “Look!” she shouts, every time Mary is about to descend from the sky, “Look, Mommy, it’s Mary! It’s Mary!” How can one resist getting swept up in such enthusiasm?

Annie was up next. I popped it into the DVD player with great anticipation, but quickly found myself being alarmed one scene after another. Miss Hannigan sexily throwing herself at the laundry dude! Yelling “Kill, kill, KILL!” at the orphans! One girl telling another to shut up! I am just waiting for Sasha to turn around and say that to me.

So I was sitting there watching this movie (Sasha tells me to skip over the scenes she doesn’t like—Miss Hannigan cooing to her radio and anything with Rooster and Lily St. Regis) and thinking about how I had absolutely no recollection of the more grown-up side of this movie. And then it dawned on me, when I was a kid I didn’t experience Annie as a movie; I experienced Annie as music. When I was about 5 I saw the Broadway show—and cried through intermission because Annie had been kidnapped and I thought the play was over—but before I saw the show, I had the soundtrack on vinyl. That soundtrack was one of my most listened to records. I can remember when my brother was a baby, standing him up on my lap and making him conduct the overture with great vigor. I must’ve eventually seen the movie somewhere down the line, but the story made its greatest impression on me through sound. (Oh, this record has a movie! Instead of, Oh, this movie has a soundtrack!) This, I now realize, is how I experienced lots of stories that kids mostly experience visually these days. Here are some:

Annie, of course, with the original cast.

Mary Poppins, the movie soundtrack. You can’t beat Julie Andrews.

Carnival of the Animals is not a movie soundtrack, but I remember listening to it constantly and loving how the music evoked vivid images of dancing animals. UPDATE: If you buy this, make sure you get a version that includes Peter and the Wolf, too!

Peter Pan, the original cast recording.

I tried showing Sasha the Disney movie of Peter Pan yesterday and I think she was too afraid of Captain Hook. The music in the film, while wonderfully Disney-ish, is completely different from the Broadway version, which I remember crowing loudly as a child. I will try playing this for Sasha and see if that’s a more gentle way to introduce her to the concept of a villain. I imagine the next exciting development will be when she is able to laugh at Hook for the buffoon that he is, and to see Miss Hannigan as I did in my mind when listening to her drunken hiccups in “Little Girls”: as a silly, silly lady who didn’t know nearly as much about how the world worked as the children who dutifully shined her orphanage like the top of the Chrysler building.

Anyone else remember listening to soundtracks as a kid? Tell us which ones to look up.