I never heard my mom sing. Dad sang the occasional ditty, but what I really remember was that he liked to whistle Yellow Bird. He could trill his whistle, which is something that I never learned to do.
My dad is a big Beatles fan. I remember him bringing home our family’s first hi-fi, along with two Beatles 8-tracks. Apparently, two Beatles 8 tracks was all the music people could possibily need, because it was a long time before we got any other cartridges. He would sing a lot of Beatles songs, mostly from the earlier years, and also Buddy Holly tunes.
Every single weekend when she cleaned the house, my mom played Carole King’s Tapesty. To this day, when I hear anything from that record it makes me think of Pledge.
My Dad listened to Motown, and because of that, it is my preferred type of music. I listen to a lot of old R&B, doo-wop, and soul because of him.
But…I do remember my Mom’s record and 8-track collection. For some reason, this orange 8-track that collected dust under our radio of Kenny Rogers won’t leave my memory.
My mothers folks lived a few states away and I remember many seemingly endless summer car trips back home listening to the same few 8-tracks over and over. Roger Whittaker was Dad’s favorite and Mom liked country, Merle Haggard, Hank Williams, George Jones, Johnny Cash, etc. Not necessarily bad music, it just used to drive us nuts because they’d only get new music at birthdays and Christmas and we’d play the living hell out of each one.
Until the year that Mom suddenly ratcheted up the cool points by buying a Leo Sayer 8-track. She’d heard and liked that one song…what was the title…“when I need you, I just close my eyes and I’m with you, and all that I so want to give you, is only a heartbeat away.” That song. We were amazed! That was a completely cool song, and not at all country, although Mom did consistently fast-forward thru each section that didn’t contain that one song so we only got to hear the 3 or 4 songs in that one part of the cassette.
Old country and Roger Whittaker, yep, that’s my parents.
I feel old - my mother liked Frank Sinatra & Dean Martin. The only song I remember my father singing was “Bye, Bye Blackbird”.
Just to ble clear: What did your parents sing or whistle when you were little? (Not ‘What did they listen to?’)
I lived with my grandparents for most of my youth. They listened to country music. We went on a lot of long car trips and so I heard a lot of it. (They also took me to three George Jones concerts.)
I hate country music with a passion.
My mom used to sing a lot when my brother and I were very little: “Wynken, Blynken, and Nod,” “The Little Blue Man,” and “Distant Melody” (which I now sing to my friends’ children) are the three that I remember most. She and my father also both had this thing where they would sing my name to the tune of “Soon It’s Gonna Rain”: Jenny Jenny Jen, Jen-ny, Jen-ny, etc.
A few years ago I got smart and asked my mom to record herself singing whatever songs she remembered from my childhood. In addition to the ones listed above she recorded “Pretty Little Horses,” “Hushabye” (she was a huge Beach Boys fan), “Jennifer Gentle,” and “Gone The Rainbow,” but I don’t have a memory of hearing those songs like I do the others.
You might want to ask a mod to change the thread title. 
Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Steve Lawrence and Edie Gorme, Andy Williams, Sammy Davis, Jr., tons of jazz instrumentals, classical, and of course, showtunes! No 50s-60s music collection was complete without them!
We sang alot when I was young. My most vivid memory of music is coming home from the Saturday afternoon matinee movie. Dinner was always early on Saturday; during the Don Ho show. There was also a cowboy music show on Saturday. Otherwise, they listened to groups like the Andrew Sisters.
I remember one record my grandmother wouldn’t allow me to listen to. ( of course, I did anytime she wasn’t within ear shot. I’ve never found any reference to it anywhere. It was The Man that Comes Around.
My Dad was the hugest influence on my musical tastes, and while he didn’t sing, he would teach me to ask for certain records. You know, so when Mother was around, he could insist that I had asked for it to be played.
Heaviest rotation back then was the Clash, B-52s, Devo. Dad loved the “weird” stuff, the more out there, the better. Not surprisingly, he was a pretty big fan of “Sandanista!”. In later years, he got me hooked on Human League, Gary Numan, Elvis Costello (his “idol”), and, of all people, Nik Kershaw.
While with my mother, often alone in the car, or for a short time when she stayed home with me in the daytime while my dad worked, she sang along to Olivia Neuter-John, Crystal Gayle, John Denver… sigh. Later on it was country. My dad seemed to like it, too, it was something they agreed on… and every car trip, near or - god forbid - far, there would be that 80s country crap. Made me sick. I hated it. Even later on she dropped the country, and it was Wilson-Phillips, Celine Dion, Mariah Carey, etc.
Now, I’m going to go to iTunes and download a couple songs from another band my dad turned me on to about 11 years ago or so… Weezer (he has proclaimed that the video for “Buddy Holly” is the best video of all time, ever). We still trade up good bands today. Which reminds me, I need to talk to him about Royksopp…
My mom wasn’t much for the singing, and when she did, it tended to be the stuff she heard from *her * father, which was mostly of the Dr. Demento variety. I think I was ten or eleven when I first heard Sinatra’s version of Strangers in the Night, and realized that the lyrics were not, in fact:
Strangled in the night, by an intruder
Bludgeoned in the night, what could be ruder?
To have my life end, by one I never knew?
My dad sings often, loudly, and badly, with whatever’s on the radio. Sadly, this was usually Streisand, Manilow, Diamond, and their ilk. Whoever decided to call that crap “easy” listening was clearly mentally ill.
He also loves his showtunes, though. Stephen Sondheim is like unto a god in our home. I knew most of Rodger’s & Hammerstein’s ouevre by heart by the time I was ten. A Chorus Line and Pippin were also great favorites. And my daughter and my dad do a killer rendition of “Life is a Cabaret.”
I almost forgot my all-time favorite music memory from my childhood. Louis Prima’s I’m Just A Gigilo. He and Keeley Smith were a great duo, and I defy anyone to listen to his version of Gigilo without bursting into hysterical laughter.
My mom sang a lot when I was a kid–lots of folk music like the New Christy Minstrels and Woody Guthrie and the Kingston Trio and such like. She also taught me her entire repertoire of drinking songs acquired at UC Chico–a notorious party school then and now. I learned a LOT of drinking songs! She’d sing along to whatever was on the radio–I remember when she just fell in love with “When I’m Sixty Four” and sang that all the time, but she disliked “Light My Fire,” which I found pretty compelling. This is probably the moment when I acquired an individual taste in music–I guess I was about seven or so.
My dad didn’t sing, but he collected a lot of records and after he’d tape them on the big TEAC reel to reel he’d give me the records, lots of Beatles and Beach Boys and Mason Williams stuff. He wouldn’t let me have the original Broadway soundtrack to “Hair” though, and wouldn’t let me listen to it–probably a wise move, really. It would’ve raised eyebrows for an eleven year old to go around singing “sodomy, fellatio, cunnilingus, pederasty–Father, why do these words sound so nasty?” at an Air Force base school. :dubious:
When I was a kid, dad used to get out his guitar and sing “Little Boxes.” He also whistled it all the time. My grandmother used to sing the story about the ant and the grasshopper to me, and it’s still one that makes me cry every time I hear it.
I played “Little boxes” at my dad’s retirement party earlier this year. I think he almost cried (which would be a lot from him)
Brendon
Ah ah…(oh no) Don’t let the rain come down,
Ah ah…(oh no) Don’t let the rain come down,
Ah ah…(oh no) Don’t let the rain come down,
My roof’s got a hole in it and I might drown
Oh yes my roof’s got a hole in it and I might drown.
Yep, that would be one of them!
Mom was also fond of “There’s a Hole In the Bucket,” which is a fabulous alternative to “99 Bottles of Beer On the Wall” for long car trips… 
I’m sure it doesn’t speak well of my musical knowledge that I associate that song mostly with Sesame Street.
You feel old! I used to listen to Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin!
My mother wasn’t much for singing, but she liked to play the piano. I don’t think my father ever sang an entire song all the way through, but he must have known at least one verse and the chorus of every song ever performed. Depending on his mood, he’d suddenly burst out in opera, big band, Broadway, hillbilly folk songs, Hank Wiliams, Sinatra and who knows what else. One time, for no reason I could figure, he came up with a couple of stanzas of “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God.”
After he died, we went through his music collection and found a copy of Janis Joplin’s Pearl. How he got that, I’ll never understand.
My mother has been known to sing various songs from My Fair Lady.
Dad didn’t routinely sing or whistle, although he might sing a line or two of a some humorous song if it was appropriate to the occasion (think Tom Lehrer, or something along those lines).