Tag: Cinderella

A Dream Is A Wish Your Heart Makes

By Anita Garner

Cinderella was the first movie I ever saw. It was at the Alex Theatre in Glendale, California.  My brother and I came out from the Deep South in 1950 to visit our Gramma and attend school while our parents completed a long revival tour.  Daddy was a preacher whose religion taught that movies were sinful and though there were plenty of picture shows where we lived, we drove right past them.   Gramma didn’t hold with his concept of sin so as soon as our parents dropped us off we got our first look inside a movie theatre.

Cinderella wasn’t the movie I’d have chosen that day.  It was Gene Autry I wanted to see up there on the big screen.  I already had my own dream relationship with him through his “Melody Ranch” radio show.  Our family listened every week, then Daddy and Mother strummed his songs on their guitars and we all sang them together. Music from the secular world was embraced in our house but the film versions were banned.

I planned to marry the Singing Cowboy, not so much because of all the ropin’ and the ridin’ and a chance to meet Champion the Wonder Horse, but because of his music. In the car on the way to California Daddy and I sang “Back In The Saddle Again” and he dropped in a little whistling break,  a sign that he really liked a particular song.

Then I saw Cinderella and all that Disney movie music started other thoughts going around in my head, promises we make to ourselves, things like…

“If you can dream it you can do it.”

“Never give up.”

“Just keep trying.”

Years went by and more Disney movies with songs about possibilities  came along.  My 8 year old self was an instant believer but my growing-up self reminded me not everyone has a fairy godmother.

Grownups become goal-oriented.  Most of us do more planning and less dreaming.  But sometimes I hear a certain Disney song and I return for a couple of minutes to a time when a girl in Arkansas believed she could marry the Singing Cowboy and go to the Alex Theatre on Saturday to watch movies that promised everything will be all right.

Click on the picture below if you want to sing along with Cinderella and the tweety birds. According to the counter on this You Tube clip, millions of people already have

 

 

 

 

 

Composers: Mack David, Al Hoffman, Jerry Livingston.
Sung by Ilene Woods, who also voiced Cinderella in the movie

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Toddlers rewrite everything.

By Anita Garner

While I drive, the little girl in my life sings me some songs.  In the middle of lyrics about, say, the wheels on the bus going round and round, she tosses in a line or two from adult songs she’s heard.  Songs about heartache or other grown-up feelings.  It’s always a surprise to hear which phrases resonate with her.  A typical re-write goes like this:

“The wheels on the bus go ’round and ’round.

And my heart misses you forever and I want you to come back right now.”

When she’s not singing, she tells me stories.  She draws in a big breath, indicating something dramatic is about to occur, and begins,

“Awe duh sodden.”

It takes a couple of seconds to figure out the words, but her emphasis helps.

Ohhh.  “All of a sudden…”

What follows are a whole bunch of sentences, spilling out in a rush, about three pigs or Belle from Beauty & The Beast, or Cinderella or Spiderman.  She starts off fairly true to the version she’s heard, then changes direction and lays down a new plot point.  Something like,

“And Cinderella stayed in the little house and the wuff couldn’t blow it down.”

Just as she’s hooked me with this twist, she announces,

“The end.”

I teach her songs from my own musical library.  She likes a song to fit into a category.  If you don’t clarify, she’ll ask what kind of song is this?  On the way to school, I say,

“Let’s sing a morning song.”

She’s fine with that.

I start with a tune from Annie Get Your Gun (not too subtly trying to teach  some Broadway tunes)

“Got no diamonds, got no pearls.

Still I think I’m a lucky girl.

I’ve got the sun in the morning and the moon at night

And with the sun in the morning and the moon in the evening, I’m all right.”

She can only take this much before the urge to re-write hits her.  She says she will now sing that song for me. Away she goes,  with an approximation of the melody and a new version of the lyrics,

“I don’t have any jewels.  I’m not happy.”

Terse.   To the point.

Irving Berlin it’s not, but it’s not bad either.  With the pre-schooler rewriting, a Broadway show would be over in about 15 minutes.

Ó Anita Garner 2009

Disney’s New Princesses

Cinderella was the first movie I ever saw. While I watched it over and over again, my brother was in a neighboring theatre watching The Sands of Iwo Jima just as many times.  After leaving the theatre, the best I could do to keep the dream alive was sing those movie songs at home. 

 

Of course when my own daughter came along, seeing Cinderella together was a crucial rite of passage.

 

Fifty years after I first saw the movie, I recently ordered Cinderella on DVD for a little girl I’m fond of, but before handing it over I had to check out all the special features, including interviews with the animation team who put the story together and the stories behind the songs.

 

Did you know that’s Mike Douglas singing the role of the Prince?  And Perry Como debuted songs from the movie on his television show even before it opened?  

 

Finally we sat down to watch, my daughter, my three year old granddaughter and me.

 

Those birds and mice still put together a heckuva ball gown.  The cat is still sneaky and the stepmother is still the epitome of mean.

 

But oh that music!  The fairy tale soprano singing A Dream Is A Wish Your Heart Makes, the chirpy animals singing about “Cinderelly” while trying to help her get to the ball, Sing Sweet Nightingale at the music lesson, and the Prince and Cinderella dancing to So This Is Love.  

 

For our youngest family member, it’s the “Godmudder” who takes her fancy with the song, Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo.

 

The little girl I’m spending time with today doesn’t really want to watch for more than a few minutes at a time. She wants to be Cinderella.  Cinderella is more than a movie.  It’s her own personal script. It’s that way too with Snow White and Sleeping Beauty and Ariel and Belle from Beauty & The Beast. Their likenesses exist on every item of merchandise a little girl wears, sleeps with, eats from and carries off to preschool.

 

She has her own DVD players for the car and home.  Her own CD collection for the road zips inside a holder that looks like a ladybug and unfolds to reveal all of the traditional nursery rhymes set to music – and now the Disney soundtracks.  

 

Her friends have Princess Parties.  And the Magic Kingdom has elaborate parties of their own.  I know one little girl who traveled from Manhattan to Disneyland with her family to attend.  

 

In my granddaughter’s interactive world, the two words we hear most often are:  Pause it.  If we’re lucky, it’s three, Pause it please.

 

Pause it please.  Let me get my princess skirt.  Pause it please.  Let me get my tiara.  Pause it.  Magic wand.  Pause it.  Watch me dance. Pause it please.  I want to sing that song.

 

When I was a girl, I could watch the princesses only on a Saturday down at the Alex Theatre.  Today every girl becomes a princess.  Smart move, Disney.

 

Ó Anita Garner 2008