Tom singing to me

At some point later in college I was upset and stressed out about something or other and in comforting me Tom started singing “Hush Little Baby.” However, only the first stanza or two was standard. After that he started making up completely ridiculous things (rhyming of course) that he was going to give me or do for me. This probably had something to do with trying to avoid singing “Tom’s gonna buy you a diamond ring.” I wish I could remember some of them. They were extremely creative – especially on the fly. In just a few minutes I was in stitches and feeling much better. After that I would ask him to sing it to me every so often. I wanted to laugh, to hear what he would come up with, and he would make these really adorable faces while he was holding out a note or dramatically pausing before revealing whatever ridiculous rhyme was coming next. Of course he’d give me a hard time before he humored me – if he humored me at all. Often he’d sing a different song and then claim he had already sung to me. For awhile it was “Happy Birthday” and more recently his song of choice was O Tannenbaum – of course sung only if it wasn’t near Christmas and with the bravado of that night he remade “Go Down Moses” in front of Opie’s door (I’ll tell that story if someone else doesn’t). After the movie Juno came out and I subjected him to the soundtrack for weeks he started singing me “I’m Sticking With You” by The Velvet Underground. I liked this development.

I sang to him too, but way less funny than Tom singing to me. I’d sing silly love songs from Broadway shows: “A Bushel and a Peck”, “Mutual Admiration Society”, “Thou Swell.” When he was feeling rotten and having trouble sleeping I’d sing him songs like “Sweet Baby James” (except Tom), “You Are So Beautiful”, and “Goodnight My Someone.” I sang him a bunch of these one year ago in the hospital. It turned out Tom’s Mom’s parents had sung some of them to each other (I think it was “A Bushel and a Peck” and “Mutual Admiration Society.”) But that’s another story.

Tom had a good voice, but he got a little nervous singing in public. He once told me that he had always thought the stereotype of the Asian businessman who works so hard to perfect a karaoke song so he can impress clients/colleagues didn’t make any sense, but then he suddenly understood and would want to think about songs before we headed out to do karaoke. I wish more people got to hear him sing casually. I guess he loosened up after a few drinks though.