One of the best ways I have of remembering my mother is through music. When we were little she used to sing us to sleep and it's mostly thanks to her that we're a very musical family (we start to sing at the drop of a hat, for example). Since it's been three years since she died I thought it would be nice to post a few videos of the songs that she really liked or that we used to sing a lot.

She was a big fan of Edith Piaf, for example, and her favourite Piaf song was 'Non, je ne regrette rien':

Her other favourite songs included Dean Martin's 'Under the Bridges of Paris', Harry Belafonte's 'Jamaica Farewell', and Frank Sinatra's 'Three Coins in a Fountain'. I'm sure there were others she liked, but these are the ones she knew the lyrics of and sang most often.

Here's Harry Belafonte singing 'Jamaica Farewell':

Bed Time Songs

A lot of the songs she sang us to sleep with were folk songs like 'Lavender Blue', 'Red River Valley', 'Danny Boy', and 'Tom Dooley'.

Here's a video of The Kingston Trio singing 'Tom Dooley':

And, since this is too good an opportunity to pass up, here's the Muppets version of 'Danny Boy':

I remember Ami having a good laugh over this when we first saw it :)

I believe she was more familiar with the Elvis version of this song, though, so here's the tribute video made for his 29th death anniversary that features it:

Travelling Songs

There were also a number of songs that we always sang in the car, particularly on long journeys. One of those was The Three Stooges song 'Swinging the Alphabet':

Other songs included 'The Animal Fair', 'Why Shouldn't My Goose', 'Row, Row, Row Your Boat', and 'Ten Green Bottles'. There were, of course, many more.

It's still hard to believe that she's gone...and I'm glad we have all this music to help keep her memory alive.