Coop Convos: What Are You Singing?

I do this thing that I think a lot of people do but maybe it’s just some people I know and we’re all in a weird, unknowing echo chamber with one another and everyone else is like “No, that’s not normal.” I don’t know, you tell me. When I am in my house[1], I sing to myself (constantly), particularly when I am busy doing a thing. I say “a thing” because honest to goodness it can be literally anything. Chores, work, walking from one room to another, playing video games, checking the mail, making dinner, etc. I have found that if I play an audiobook or podcast in my Airpods, I won’t do the singing bit but otherwise, if I’m even remotely paying attention to Activity X, I will inevitably find myself absentmindedly singing. I almost never realize I am doing this until either A) someone calls me on it or B) I suddenly realize I don’t even like the song I’m singing. Everyone sings in the car when a real jam comes on the radio or in the shower or whatever but I suspect my particular affliction runs deeper than most.

In my defense, I am not typically overly loud in my perpetual song. It’s somewhere between a mumble and a half-voice but at least I’m not belting out (poorly tuned) bangers all through the day.[2] Where I have no defense, however, is in the choice of song. Sometimes it’s the earworm thing we all experience wherein a song randomly pops up in the background of life and your mind latches on for the ensuing hours (or days!) whether you like it or not. But sometimes, it’s more like there’s an echo in my brain that’s just taken a very long time to work its way back around and suddenly this song I heard six months ago in a Jiffy Lube is the only thing that matters in life, at least subconsciously. To make matters worse for those around me, I often swap out the lyrics for these songs, both the earworm and brain echo variety, for the people and beings and things around me. Our dog, Lucy, is the most frequent muse for these unintentional parody songs; there is no song that I cannot turn into a missive about Lucy. 

So, like, this is life with Brian Gill: a perpetual string of songs, some real and some made up on the spot, and all at the perfectly annoying decibel of “just audible enough to be annoying.” 

Cooper hangs out with me a lot during Normal Times but in Quarantine Times, obviously the ratio of moments spent with me versus without me has gone up quite a bit. I am quite genuinely thankful for this as I really do enjoy hanging out with my kid and he’s very easy to manage.[3] But it would be a lie to say that so many of these newfound hang out moments qualify as quality time. More often than not, it’s him sitting in my office with me playing on my iPad while I work at my desk as Phineas and Ferb plays in the background. This is a-ok with me as long as he doesn’t ask too much of my attention span and it’s a-ok with him as long as I don’t insist on basketball playing on the TV. Little compromises, you guys. 

Anyway, recently this exact scenario was playing out in my office. Coop on my iPad, me doing work at my desk, some show on the TV. I don’t know what I was working on but I was focusing on the screen in front of me, typing away and trying to keep my productivity up while he was distracted by Clash of Clans and before his string of questions began anew. Apparently, in the midst of my concentration and without my own recognition, I started in on my singing bit because this is the resulting conversation. 

Cooper (out of nowhere and with an incredible level of indignation in his voice): Have you been watching Boss Baby?!

NOTE: I assume you know what Boss Baby is but just in case: Boss Baby is a Dreamworks animated movie from 2017 featuring the voice talent of Tobey Maguire, Lisa Kudrow, Jimmy Kimmel, and Alec Baldwin as the titular Boss Baby. The movie is about a baby (the Boss Baby) who is sent from Baby HQ to figure out why babies are waning in popularity as opposed to puppies.[4] It is not a documentary, if you are unsure.

Me: What?
Cooper: Have you been watching Boss Baby without ME?!
Me: No. I have definitely not been watching Boss Baby without you. Why? 
Cooper: Because you’re singing the song from Boss Baby. 

Now, again, I cannot stress to you enough, dear reader, that the vast majority of the time, I do not realize I am singing in the first place. To ask anything further of me, like, say, keeping track of what I am singing, is far too much, to be honest. It’s like a very stupid reflex akin to breathing. Did you just take a breath? Yes? Well, okay, what kind of breath was it? Was it a super deep breath, a shallow breath, a double breath like when you almost burp but you don’t? TELL ME ABOUT YOUR BREATH! That’s kind of what it feels like in the moment especially when I really am trying to focus on whatever I’m working on.[5] 

So, I had to backtrack the last few minutes in my mind and think about what I was singing. 

Me: What was I singing? 
Cooper: The song from Boss Baby, I told you. 
Me: What’s the song from Boss Baby about? I don’t remember.
Cooper: It’s about a bird or something. 

“Blackbird.” I was singing “Blackbird.” By The Beatles. Off of the White Album. THAT “Blackbird.” And my son thought it was a Boss Baby original. 

I have failed as a parent. 

[1] And, in theory, I guess it could happen in other spaces wherein I know I am alone or nearly alone but this rarely happens so I don’t have a large sample size of data to back up the theory. 
[2] Though my wife might disagree.
[3] Those two things probably go hand-in-hand.
[4] I could’ve answered this question for Boss Baby and the other babies at Baby HQ: it’s because rent and student loan debt and car payments are way too high and income hasn’t kept up with inflation and the cost of living. There’s, like, a million Ted Talks on this subject. Get on the internet, Boss Baby. *scoffs*
[5] I’m really trying to sell this as I was hard at work on some very serious task for my actual job but in reality it was probably fantasy basketball scores.