The Saddest Music in the World

It's been obvious that, over the past few weeks, our visit to the Baltimore Museum of Art has stuck in Zosia's mind. Not to a worrying degree or anything, but this episodes illustrates that she's been spending time thinking about what she saw.

A few days after the museum trip she asked to hear some sad music while we were driving in the car. She's been getting into the music she hears on the radio more & more lately (the other day I taught her to sing along to "Roxanne") but this was the first time she expressed a preference to hear a specific type of music. I scanned around the stations and couldn't find anything that satisfied her criteria for sad music -- I did find Soundgarden's "Burden In My Hand" but I don't think Zosia was listening for lyrical content -- so I told her I'd play her some sad songs when we got home.

While she was in the bath I got the iPod and portable speakers and set them up for her. She was playing with some toys, including an Elmo doll, and I asked if she still

Poor dead Elliott

wanted to hear some sad music and she said she did. So I cued up Elliott Smith's 'XO' record, which would make the Dalai Lama cry, and as Sweet Adeline played I watched for her reaction.

She seemed to be listening as she played, and after a few seconds she said, "this boy is very sad." I was taken aback -- I mean yeah the song is in a minor key and very sad-sounding, but I wasn't expecting her to key in on Smith's state of mind so quickly -- so I asked her what she meant.

"This boy is sad because his brother isn't coming to swim with him," she said. It was at that point I looked at her and saw that she was pointing at her Elmo doll. So, not so much instant empathy with poor Elliott, but who knows, maybe she got her singer songwriters mixed up and was feeling sad about Jeff Buckley?