by Cassidy Nunn | photo by Nunn Other Photography –
“Baby beluga in the deep blue sea, swim so wild and you swim so free …” I sing the lyrics of Raffi’s iconic Baby Beluga softly to my six-month-old baby girl, who’s over tired and has been crying. Her eyes immediately soften, her wails come to a sudden halt and she sighs, her whole body relaxing as she snuggles against my chest. I know all the lyrics by heart, as I’m what Raffi himself might consider a “beluga grad” – a child of the 1980s who grew up on his music and is now introducing it to my own offspring.
I can remember as a kid thumbing through all the cardboard covers of my parent’s vinyl records collection until I came to the battered, well-worn cover of Raffi’s Baby Beluga album. My brother and I would listen to it often in the living room, dancing around to Raffi’s soothing voice. As I hum the rest of the song to my baby, her eyes eventually close and her breathing deepens as she enters a sound sleep. I’m once again amazed at the calming effect this song has had on both of my girls. My older daughter responded the same way when she was an infant: any time she was upset, especially on car rides, I’d immediately turn Raffi on and let the opening sounds of beluga whales communicating fill the vehicle; her crying would cease almost immediately. It’s incredible the lasting effect music can have on one – this song at once takes me back to warm memories from my own childhood, while also physically makes me feel calmer. Clearly it’s also had the same effect on both my children and inspired their own melodious characters to come out.
My three-and-a-half-year-old enjoys singing her way through every day. Sometimes it’s actual songs that I may recognize (a recent favourite is the Rolling Stones classic You Can’t Always Get What You Want, which has become a common phrase around our household these days as we are subjected to her ever-increasing and evolving “I want this!” demands. Other times she croons to completely made-up tunes with gibberish words that only she knows the meaning of. She hums to herself in the bath, belts out melodies to our neighbourhood when we’re out walking and my personal favourite is her grocery store serenading; she’ll sit in the cart, swinging her legs, bobbing her head, completely entranced in her own world, while singing away, sometimes loudly, other times almost under her breath. Her baby sister, strapped to my chest in a carrier on these shopping missions, has begun to join in with her own chorus of gooos and gaaas, testing out her vocal chords. This tends to create quite the cacophony, especially as big sister has to increase her voice to maintain being the loudest voice in the room. Thankfully most of our fellow shoppers get a real kick out of this and grin as they pass by.
“Mama, I want to listen to Taylor Swift,” has become the latest request on repeat in our household. She heard the pop singer’s music on the radio once and asked me who sang the song. Boom – that’s all it took! I told her the singer’s name ONCE and I now have a certified Swiftie on my hands. She’s not even four! Such is the power of Taylor Swift it appears! And so as we continue singing our way around town, flipflopping from childhood folk to mega pop star tunes, with a dash of other musical genres thrown into the mix, I’m sure you’ll hear us coming from a mile away. If you do, I hope it’ll bring a smile to your face; there could be worse things than having a little Baby Beluga stuck in your head for the rest of the day.
