Friday, June 21, 2013

Ukulele Man

If you check out my Flickr, you've probably already seen this. It was something I started to write as a joke, and then I ended up kinda liking it, so I decided to share with a (slightly) wider audience. 






It's eleven o'clock on a Friday
Me and my boys hanging out
Neither one's jumping on top of me
But that'll change quickly, no doubt

Then my son finds this old ukulele
He's not really sure what it's for
So I tighten a string and I pluck a few notes
And then he starts beggin' for more

La la la di dee da,
La la, di da da dum

Play us a song, ukulele man,
Play us a song today
Yeah this thing's just a toy, but it brings your dad joy
Whenever your song starts to play

Then I hand Isaac back the small instrument
To see what he'll do with it now
And his eyes say "I know this makes music
I just gotta figure out how."
Then his eyes scrunch up in concentration
As he gingerly fingers a string
And he bites his lower lip as he plucks it
And the thing makes a magical "ping"

Oh, la la la, di da da
La la, di da da da dum

Then my boy starts to pick each and every string
Studying every noise
Then his fingers start strummin' and he begins hummin',
That thing becomes more than a toy

It's a pretty good song for a toddler
When he's finished, he finally grins
And I know that my baby loves music
Almost as much as I love him.
And he carries it around for the rest of the day
Till his ukulele time is done
In a year, he won't even remember these days
In a year, I'll wonder where they've all gone

Oh, la la la, di da da
La la, di da da da dum

So play me a song, Ukulele Man,
Play me a song today
Though the world may be full of grand-masters
You're the one that I want to hear play