"The hills are alive with the sound of music...."~ Rodgers & Hammerstein II
My dearest E.,
The Sound of Music (TSOM), one of the greatest classics of all time, is a cinch when it comes to getting you to sleep. Three times, I'd sing this to you during bedtime: the first time, your eyelids start drooping, but you continue to twiddle about with your blanket, the second, your eyes are closed, you suck on your Minnie Mouse pacifier vigorously and you turn your body inwards closer to mine, the third, your pacificer drops out of your mouth and you breathe quietly, sleeping like an angel. I tell you, I have smiled and have not stopped smiling on the day I started singing this song to you, and realizing how much you loved it. And how easy it is to get you to go to bed once I start singing.
TSOM was a movie musical written by Richard Rodgers (music) and Oscar Hammerstein II (lyrics) and the 1965 production of the movie musical starring Dame Julie Andrews, one of my favourite actresses of all time, and Sir Christopher Plummer, shot to phenomenal success. The story of TSOM was taken from a book written by Maria Von Trapp entitled "The Story of the Trapp Family Singers". The songs featured in the movie musical have become amazingly popular classics. I can bet that there isn't a person who cannot sing the first opening lines of TSOM. And then there are songs like Edelweiss, My Favourite Things, So Long, Farewell and the Lonely Goatheard (which has been "borrowed" by Gwen Stefani in her song, Wind it Up).
Here are the lyrics to the Sound of Music: I promise that when you are older, I shall buy a DVD and we shall watch this beloved movie musical together.
The hills are alive with the sound of music
With songs they have sung for a thousand years
The hills fill my heart with the sound of music
My heart wants to beat every song it hears.
My heart wants to beat like the wings
of the birds that fly from the lake to the trees
My heart wants to sigh like the chime
that flies from the church on a breeze
To laugh like a brook when it trips and falls
Over stones on its way
To sing through the night
Like a lark that is learning to pray
I go to the hills when my heart is lonely
I know I will hear what I've heard before
My heart will be blessed with the sound of music
And I'll sing once more.
