(The first few quiet notes of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata fill the room…)
Dad: (kissing her head) Goodnight, LR.
LR: Goodnight Da-…
(The melody starts playing; this time with unexpected, accompanying harmonica.)
(from just outside the door) Hawwwwnk… Hawnk haw hawwwwnk…. Hawwwn haw hawwwnnkk…
RJ: (waltzes into the room, playing along and dancing around) Hawwwn haw hawwwnnkk…
LR: (uncontrollable giggles)
RJ: Do you like it? It’s the Harmonica Sonata!
Dad: Oh yeah, it’s heaps better than the original. I’m sure Beethoven would have loved it. Now, BACK TO BED!
(A few minutes later, RJ insisted on showing me his “emergency harmonica” and where he keeps it, in case he needs it in a hurry… And THEN he went to bed.)
RJ: Just grab a potato, then you slice it nice and thin…
Dad: (pointing to loaf of sliced bread) How about this instead?
Now in front of me is a very rare Brazilian Potato. I carefully open the wrapping, and then large chips just peel away. Amazing stuff! Greatest invention since…
RJ: (sternly) That’s not a Brazilian potato. That’s impossible.
Dad: What do you mean?
RJ: Don’t you remember the song? The Brazil song?
RJ: (singing) No tea…. Or tomato juice…
You’ll see… No potato juice…
RJ: No potato juice means no potatoes. Sorry.
Dad: You’re right… My mistake — wrong South American country. Now in front of me is a very rare Bolivian Potato…
(while eating breakfast… LR is playing computer chess, while RJ sings us some of his original hits)
RJ: (singing)
The worst germ,
That you can have,
Gives you a kind of vomit.
And diarrhoea, that is so bad,
That you can’t ever drink enough water. And… So… You… Die…
LR: Good one RJ!
Dad: Yeah. Did you learn that one at school?
RJ: Nah. I just made it up now. That’s my cholera song.
RJ: (singing) Chikka-chakka-chikka-chukka cho… (continues for a minute) RJ: Do you like my song? Dad: Sure, but I don’t understand the words or what it’s about. RJ: You don’t know the Chikka-chakka language? Dad: Nope. It’s a bit sad really. RJ: Ugh.. That’s terrible… RJ: (a few moments later) (singing) Waa-waa-wee-ooo. Waaa… (continues for a minute) RJ: How about that song? Dad: Great one, but bad news… I didn’t understand that one either. RJ: What!? You don’t understand Waa-wee language? That is ridiculous! What did they teach you in school?! Dad: I guess it wasn’t a very good school. RJ: Okay. One more try… RJ: (singing) Mikka-mak, mikka-mak mooo! Mikka-mak, mikka-mak mooo-ooo-ooo! Mikka-mikka… (continues for ages) Dad: That’s the best one yet, but you’ll have to explain it to me. RJ: It’s a song about falling in love… with a beautiful girl. Dad: It’s awesome. I’ll have to sing it to mum.
You’ll often hear LR wandering around humming tunes or singing songs to herself. She’s obviously got her own personal soundtrack going on.
For the past two weeks, however, her soundtrack has switched over completely to the Imperial March (from Star Wars). It’s the piece of music that plays whenever Darth Vader enters a scene: dark, ominous, foreboding.
Dad: I love that song. Maybe I could learn to play it on the piano!
LR: Or on the guitar!
RJ: Or on the ukelele!
LR: Or on the flute!
RJ: Or on the computer!
LR: Or on the drums!
RJ: Or on a violin, but the bow is made from lots of spider webs that are stretched very long on a stick… But you would have to play it very carefully.
LR and RJ: (joyously singing together) We all live in a yellow submarine!
RJ: (after the cacaphony quiets down) When I was a little kid (in Malaysia), we used to sing that song all the time… But it was a bit different. It was about a blue submarine.
(LR and her friend T spent an hour planning their next album)
Band: Zulu Leprechauns
Album: Zulu Leprechauns (self titled)
Tracks:
Progress Hurts
Answers are Free
Tricks are Looking for You
Horses Rock
Freezing Bubblegum
Disco Rainbow / Silent Rainbow
Gimme Some Robot
Dogs and Cats Skydive
100 Dollar Monsters
Step Away from the Pig
What the critics are saying:
“Everyone’s favorite hipsters open with one of their reliably depressing musings on life and time, accompanied by shimmering, aquatic xylophones and drums crashing in a fractured march while a woozy bass spills like a cloud of ink all over everything, before shifting unexpectedly to slowly undulating strings perfectly hinged on a bubblegum melody which is instantly moving, yet nailing gothic disquiet both on and off the page. The second track is a step back in the band’s development, in part due to a beat that sounds like what might happen if “Flight of the Bumblebee” got mixed with the theme from Psycho and random female utterances. The band returns to form, however, with a moving coda of snowballs packed with rock-hard chunks of melody, and in each case, the lead singer’s voice abrades the solid lines down to the bare minimum, and the band fills in the resulting space with pure venom.”
