Mixtape

 Audio / Video files of songs mentioned in this story

. . . In her mind she could remember about six different tunes from the pieces of his she had heard. A few of them were kind of quick and tinkling, and another was like that smell in the springtime after a rain. But they made her somehow sad and excited at the same time.

She hummed one of the tunes, and after a while in the hot, empty house by herself she felt the tears come in her eyes. Her throat got tight and rough and she couldn’t sing any more. Quickly she wrote the fellow’s name at the very top of the list - MOTSART

Sometimes it was like she was out in Switzerland and all the mountains were covered with snow and she was skating on cold, greenish-colored ice. 

And maybe Carole Lombard or Arturo Toscanini who played on the radio.

After a while a new announcer started talking. He mentioned Beethoven. She had read in the library about that musician - his name was pronounced with an “a” and spelled with double “e.” He was a German fellow like Mozart. When he was living he spoke in a foreign language and lived in a foreign place - like she wanted to do. The announcer said they were going to play his third symphony.

The radio swung into an old song that dated back to the time when he and Alice were engaged. ‘Just a Baby’s Prayer at Twilight.’ They had taken the streetcar one Sunday to Old Sardis Lake and had rented a rowboat. At sunset he played on the mandolin while she sang. She had on a sailor hat, and when he put his arm around her waist she — Alice —

Biff rocked himself in the chair and languidly plucked the strings of the mandolin. 

His eyes closed and he began to sing in a doleful voice:

I went to the animal fair.
The birds and the beasts were there,
And the old baboon by the light of the moon
Was combining his auburn hair.

He finished with a chord from the strings and 

the last sounds shivered to silence in the cold air.

Biff took up his mandolin again. ‘Tum-ti-tim-ti-tee, ti-tee, the wedd-ing of the painted doll’ He sang through all the verses and wagged his foot to the time. 

Then he played ‘K-K-K-Katie,’ and ‘Love’s Old Sweet Song.’

Billy Murray - K-K-K-Katy (Stammering Song) 1918 Edison Blue Amberol Cylinder

Love's Old Sweet Song

Her Dad would have to get up and walk with her every night when she was Ralph’s age. 

The only thing would hush her, he always said, was for him to beat the coal scuttle with a poker and sing ‘Dixie.’

Across the room Willie was playing his harp. Buddy and Highboy were listening. The music was dark and sad. When the song was finished Willie polished his harp on the front of his shirt. ‘I so hungry and thirsty the slobber in my mouth done wet out the tune.’