Women's voices: Days like this

Okay, so I pointed out the blindingly obvious yesterday—stuff happens in life. And then happens again. And rinse and repeat.

Today being a Friday the Thirteenth, we might want to consider this. 

And naturally the Voices have it covered.

One of the classics in this regard has to be “Mama Said”, and the classic rendition of it is by The Shirelles, one of the classic girl-groups from the 60s.

I can’t tell you how many times after bizarre conference calls or when projects took a turn for the worse my only consolation has been to imagine the refrain from this song. When it gets really bad, I actually start singing it.

And I love The Shirelles; their harmonies are just so…girl-groupy. They did a bang-up cover of Carole King’s “Will You Love Me Tomorrow”, and I vaguely remember “Soldier Boy” from the (gasp) AM radio days. If you’ve not met them, haul yourself over to YouTube and wallow.

On the subject of dealing with those Mama-said days, King wrote “Up on the Roof”, which I also offer today.

Yeah, this is a city song—not a lot of places I’ve lived had a roof you could even get up to, much less sit on for any length of time without serious health consequences. (Closest I ever got was my second escape attempt from the house I grew up in; age four, I climbed out the window of my bedroom and my mom had to haul me back in from the roof.)

But I like the idea of a time-out kind of place, whether it’s a roof, a park, a bar or a bathtub spiked with Japanese bath salts. We all need that sort of refuge, whatever the metaphor.