MAMA
Mom Songs. For Mother's Day. Or any day.
I had an idea that I might put together a playlist for Mother’s Day. I could think of a handful of songs with ‘mother’ in the title just off the top of my head, and reckoned there must be loads more if I just looked. After all, everyone has a mom. Literally, everyone. Ever. As Adrienne Rich once summed it up;
“All human life on the planet is born of woman. The one unifying, incontrovertible experience shared by all women and men is that months-long period we spent unfolding inside a woman’s body. Because young humans remain dependent upon nurture for a much longer period of than other mammals, and because of the division of labor long established in human groups, where women not only bear and suckle but are assigned almost total responsibility for children, most of us first know both love and disappointment, power and tenderness, in the person of a woman.”
So 100% of humanity has emerged from mothers, and roughly half of us are born with the capacity to become one. And that relationship, between mother and child, is the most intimate and intense and important there is. And music is probably the art form most capable of evoking and exploring human emotions. So you would end up with scores of songs about moms, wouldn’t you?
Nope.
I’ve been surprised by this dearth of mom songs. Though I shouldn’t have been. It is nearly forty years since my mother had me, and though I’ve always loved her, and thought that I appreciated her, it is only in the five since my son was born that I actually have any idea what a massive amount of work and wonder it is to create and accept full responsibility for a new human being. In these mothering years I’ve sought and found a great deal of visual and written art works that deal with the mothering role, from both mother and child perspectives. But very few songs, now that I stop to check. Pop music seems to generate an endless number of songs about the impulse to make babies, but not many about what it is to grow and birth and rear - or be - the children made from it. Shagging is cool. Mothering is not. That seems to be the general rule.
But there are great exceptions. You just have to dig. Or know what the songwriter is secretly singing about. Like the many U2 lyrics about Bono’s mother dying, that you wouldn’t know were about that if you didn’t read lots of music magazines as a teenager, as I did. Or Joni Mitchell’s amazing “Little Green”, which I knew from the first listen was a sad song, but didn’t learn until much later was actually about Mitchell putting her baby up for adoption, because she was single and very poor. Which is obviously very sad, and makes me wonder what sorts of songs she might have written if she’d been in a position to enjoy motherhood and be one of the finest songwriters of her (or any) generation.
Cue Kate Bush. I generally have a rule against putting more than one song by the same artist on these mixes, as they are so short, but it had to be broken for her. Because she has written not only an excellent song about having a mother, but perhaps the prettiest song about being a mother I’ve ever heard. Her album Aerial came out when I was in college, and did not resonate much with me at the time. Now that I have another couple of decades and a cesarian scar under my belt, the songs land quite differently. Especially one called “Bertie”. I think it’s the only track I’ve ever heard where the songwriter really rolls around and luxuriates in the pure, glorious, adoring love a mother can experience at the very sight of her little boy’s face:
You bring me so much joy
And then you bring me more joy
You bring me so much joy
And then you bring me more joy
You bring me so much joy
And then you bring me more joy
It is the maternal equivalent of John Lennon’s “Beautiful Boy”. And I relate to it and love it so much. But “Mother Stands For Comfort” refused to go. So both had to stay.
I will continue to keep an ear out for more maternal tracks to add to my collection. If you have any suggestions, please send them my way. In the meantime, I’m pleased with the mix that has come together. It goes like this:
I have the great fortune to have a wonderful mom, and the great fortune to be the mom to a wonderful boy whom I share with a wonderful husband. I’m well aware how very lucky I am. And I’m also well aware that mothering, even in fortunate circumstances, is a heavy gig. So if you know someone who might enjoy a colourful bunch of mom songs, for Mother’s Day, or any day, please pass them on.