On Garfield concert day, a blast from the past

Today at 1 p.m. I'll head over to Garfield Elementary School and watch my son, Sam, and the other 300 or so kids at the school deliver their spring concert. And this, of course, reminds me of a story. When my daughter Emma was at Garfield three years ago, I went to one of her concerts that was perhaps the most memorable school-singing concerts I'd ever been to.

Why?

Well, I blogged about it at the time. I'm reposting that blog entry here for your Thursday morning enjoyment. At the time, I held back the name of the school, but now, with three years passed, I'm OK with saying this all happened at Garfield.

Have a great day, everyone.

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You've seen her.

The long, curly locks of golden hair cascading down an angelic face, always singing about a boyfriend or some other magical moment in her very young life.

Of course I'm talking about Taylor Swift. And normally I wouldn't be inclined to write about her or talk about her for any musical reason. But I have to admit that I'll always be a fan of her song, "Love Story." And I'll tell you why.

If any of you have children, you've no doubt been to a few Christmas- or holiday-themed singing programs at a school or day care center. Maybe you've been to several. If you're like me, you've been to several dozen, all of which fall on a quality continuum scale ranging from "not bad," to "wow." (All kids show up and no one pukes, not bad. Songs sung loudly, with feeling, actions, maybe even characters ... wow.)

But this isn't a story about a program that went well. It's about a program that didn't go so well, at least not until Taylor Swift showed up. My daughter, who LOVES when we come to her shows, who looks for us in the audience and smiles and sings proudly, said this to me: "Please don't come! It's gonna be really bad!"

I'm going to spare the name of the school. The teachers there work hard, and there can't be a much harder task than getting a bunch of sixth-graders to sing. Have you had a sixth-grader in your home? It can be the most amazing, and most maddening, time of your life. Changes are occurring, attitudes are shifting, boundaries are being pushed. None of this necessarily means a group of them won't sing pretty. But it sure as heck don't help. So my hat goes off to the teachers who do all they can do and did all they did.

Here's how it went down ...

Like all shows like this, the gymnasium was packed. The limited bleacher space filled immediately. Folding chairs, too. All the wall space was filled with the backs of parents. In fact, they were three, four and in some cases five deep against the walls. I, having been on the short end of the height gene pool, had to crane my neck around a rather tallish and rotundish soccer mom who came late and didn't realize she'd parked in front of a short guy. So it's hot in there.

The kids are taking their places. A hush falls over the crowd ... Until, BOOM! a ruckus erupts near the back of the lined-up kids. It seems in the back, one of the kids has fallen off the bleachers. A hundred sixth-grade heads turn, a handful of teachers rush to help ... But it's OK. Just a little pride is hurt. And the show continues.

Students had been learning guitar. A few dozen of them are set up to play them, and they sound swell. And then a few play electric guitar. And before I say anything about this, let me just say it was clear they'd been practicing, clear they loved what they were doing and maybe they'll go on to be major rock stars. But on this day, a few notes were, well, missed ...

A song or two later, the kids get start song three or four (it's a been a while, and I'm 40 now, so my memory fails me from time to time), the kids get off to a bit of a rough start. Some are singing, some aren't. Is there a miscommunication? Do they know what song they're singing? The teacher raises her hands, waves them in the air ("like she just don't care!") to signal the students to stop singing. They do. And then they start over.

So as you can see, things weren't going well. I remember thinking to myself, "My god, this is a train wreck ... Now I know why Emma didn't want us to come."

And then Taylor showed up.

Not the woman herself, of course. But her spirit -- the same youthful spirit you see oozing from her pores every time she accepts a major music industry award and tells a crowd of smitten onlookers how "this is definitely the highlight of my senior year," or "I gotta go now and do my homework!"

I wondered whether that song in the program was a coincidence, whether some quaint, acceptable song from the early 1900s just happened to have the same name as Taylor Swift's chart topper "Love Story." You've heard the tune. It's inescapable. "Mary me Juliet, you'll never have to be alone!" Sappy, to be sure, and hardly the stuff of elementary school concerts.

In the packed gymnasium, however, on this spring day, Taylor Swift's spirit turned a memorable (for the wrong reasons) show into one I'll never forget.

The piano player got it rolling with a few notes that set the tone. If anyone was wondering about that coincidence, they weren't now. It was unmistakable. The lyrics, sung from the mouths of a few hundred sixth graders who were suddenly ready to let everyone know how good they were, transformed the atmosphere from "Is it over yet?" to "Oh my ... What's this, now?"

"We were both young, when I first saw you,

I close my eyes and the flashback starts,

I'm standing there,

on a balcony in summer air."

Reluctant singers became the cast from "Grease." You could hear every word, clear as a bell. The gymnasium, which for much of that concert was a room full of people who obsessively checked their watches, turned into a place where time stood still. It was as if the gods of school concerts looked down upon the school that day and said, "Mankato, here is a moment to remember." No one was pitchy. Voices boomed. With feeling. The sound was drenched with emotion and purpose. Were these the same kids who sang the first few songs?

We laugh about this concert in my house. And when the subject of Taylor Swift comes up in conversation, I say, "I may not be the biggest fan of her music, but I'll always like Taylor Swift."

I thought of her, and the concert, on that night when Kanye West made an ass of himself at her expense, interrupting her acceptance speech to tell everyone that he thought someone else made a better video -- the look on her face was the definition of crestfallen. I'm guessing she recovered nicely, what with her multi-platinum success and millions of dollars.

But more importantly, I thought of the kids and the remarkable recovery they made that day. It was dramatic. Maybe even Shakespearean. OK, maybe not Shakespearean, but a helluva show, and helluva story.