Every Other Day of the Week is Fine

My grandmother loved the Oldies.

I’m not talking about the “oldies” from the eighties that are played on oldies stations today (and I mean, really, the eighties are oldies now?!!? Give me a break!).  I’m talking about the golden oldies of the 1950s and 60s–the Beatles, The Mamas & the Papas, Elvis, The Shirelles, Franki Valli, Marvin Gaye, and all the rest.

I grew up listening to them at home and at my Meme’s, the rockin’ oldies emitting tinnily from small radios perched atop refrigerators and kitchen window ledges.  We tended to listen to music more than we watched TV, except for when the soaps came on around lunchtime (to this day, I am invested in the plot of The Young and the Restless…Victor is such a great character!).

My days now are often spent at home with my baby, and we, too, tend to listen to music all day rather than watch TV.  We have several favorite Pandora stations, including John Denver, Creedence Clearwater Revival, and Broadway Favorites.  But, as Pandora’s brilliant data metrics inform me, we listen to “60s Oldies” most often.

This Monday morning, after a rough night spent awake with Ruthie, as I work on the huge stack of papers I stupidly assigned and drink coffee by the gallon, I’m thinking of the Oldies. One of my favorite songs seems especially apt.  It’s “Monday Monday” by The Mamas & The Papas, and its chorus goes like this:

Monday, Monday, can’t trust that day
Monday, Monday, sometimes it just turns out that way
Oh Monday mornin’ you gave me no warnin’ of what was to be
Oh Monday, Monday, how could you leave and not take me

Every other day, every other day
Every other day of the week is fine, yeah
But whenever Monday comes, but whenever Monday comes
You can find me cryin’ all of the time

For such sad-sounding lyrics, it’s a curiously upbeat song.  The fact that most oldies are, coupled with the fact that they always remind me of my grandmother, is why I love them so much.

So, even though today is Monday…I am curiously upbeat!