No. 040 - “Mother Sent Me to the Store” changed my life
A mother-son hunt for a missing song that Duane Lauginiger swears is real
🌸 A Grace favorite
This Song Changed My Life is an independent music publication featuring essays from people all around the world about the songs that mean the most to them. Created by Grace Lilly, supported by readers.
• 7 min read •
It is pretty hard to pick one song that changed my life.
I could say it was “Gimme Shelter” by the Rolling Stones, played on my record/tape player over and over again until it started to scare my mother. I could go even cooler and say it was “Ana” by the Pixies, and describe how it felt like a rebirth in my 10-year-old soul, completely washing my brain clean of the hair metal I was consuming before that moment. I could even go clever, not pick just one, but leave a list of songs that act as mile markers in the rear view mirror memory that makes up what I think is my identity, maaaan.
But if I’m being honest (and I think I am) it wasn’t cool, clever, or even that interesting.
It was a song called “Mother Sent Me to the Store” in a piano-for-beginners book left in the bench of an old player piano we had in our house. My mom bought it to practice at home for lessons she was taking at our local music store. I can still smell the old stained black wood and hear the slightly out of tune Middle C of that piano.
The song was a simple melody in C Major that sounded a lot like “Love Me Tender.” Nothing special. Nothing new. But it blew my whole world apart.
I grew up in Virginia, the only child of quickly divorced parents in the 80s. My father left all his records when they separated. Combined with my mom’s records, the collection provided an all day, every day soundtrack of canonical albums from the baby boomer age. I consumed them. Ate them whole. As if I was catching up with the rest of the world.
Music always moved me from my earliest memories. If I liked a song, I would become obsessed with the world it created in my brain. Transported even. Out of the chaos of the real world. It seemed like magic. Who could do that? Only larger-than-life wizards with neon names and perfect hair.
Any time I was near any instrument, I would give it all my attention and try to see how the valves of a saxophone or the metal strings on an acoustic guitar could push the magic out. That black piano made more sense. Everything laid out in a repeating pattern of black and white. C to C to C.
I got my Mom to sign me up for lessons with a woman named Cathy Combs. She taught out of her apartment across town. Her grand piano filled the living room and sounded amazing when she played it. We focused on learning the treble clef first. “Every good boy deserves fudge” and “FACE” were the anagrammatic tricks to remember which note was on which line. Mantra style, I repeated them over and over again in my head.
I burned through my first lesson book filled with mainly exercises, not songs. I was now obsessed. Turning to my mom’s book, I found the song. A simple melody, even simpler lyrics, no left hand, perfect. I still know that the notes went CFDFCEE CEDEF CFDFCEE CEDEF, then AFCFDEE DECEAFF.
That’s all I needed.
I would play this over and over and over again. As soon as I woke up, any free second in the day, and a couple more times before bed. I would wake my mom up at 7 in the morning to see how fast I could play it. The patience of a single mother. Bless you, Kim.
Figuring this song out cracked the world open.
Kids back then could pretty much do whatever they wanted whenever they wanted with relatively little structure compared to today, so most of my time was spent at that piano trying to see what else I could unlock from the radio or sheet music. I had a clear mission that I think I might still be on. Or just undiagnosed OCD that I might still have.
Counting to five. Then back up. Counting steps. Constantly measuring. Seeing repeating numbers in the world. Still now. Almost every day.
Finally, a sound to go with the feeling. It can be exactly right every time, until it’s not, then you start over. Still, even now. Every day. Even now.
From page, to eye, to brain, to hand, to key, to hammer, to string, to air, to ear, to brain, and back again. Even now.
The hard part is, I can’t find the song.
I’ve done a lot of internet searching on the subject, and the closest I’ve come is a Fats Waller song called “My Mommie Sent Me to the Store.” The melody is similar, but the lyrics don’t match my memory. I think it must’ve been a reworked rewrite for eager students who are not quite up to Fats’ chops.
I don’t always talk to Mom.
I won’t air dirty laundry in public, but we’re both human beings, and human beings are complicated creations capable of both kindness and cruelty. Pure reactions. Both likely fed from the same stream of trauma and insecurity. That stream runs deep between us and makes our relationship very difficult to maintain.
Right now, we talk occasionally. Short, quick catch-ups. Safe.
It seems like I should maybe make a call and ask if she remembers the song. I don’t think I made it up.
Grace messaged me today and asked how the writing was coming. I feel bad that I didn’t warn her about how I take way too long and think way too much about anything I put out into the world. I think I messaged those exact words to her, and then I called my mother.
She answered, sounding familiar and far away.
Thin-ice voice on my mouth, I ask, “Can I ask you a question?”
“What?”
“Can I ask you a question?”
“No, yeah. What question?”
“Well, I’m writing this thing for my friend, Grace…”
“That was Nanna’s name, you know?”
“Yeah, weird. But it’s a short thing about the first song that cracked your world in half.”
“Oh, okay.”
“Do you still have your old piano books?”
“I’d have to look.”
“Do you remember a song called ‘Mother Sent Me to the Store?’”
At this, my Mother laughed a laugh I’ve heard before. Countless times. Mostly when the only thing to cheer up a capital-S-Sad mother was the dark humor of a child living through the same times — 19 years behind but so, so alive. Eyes so, so open. Ears wide, teeth crooked, sky blue, and so are you.
“Do I remember it?! How could I forget? You played that thing over and over and over…”
“Hahahaha yeah I know, that’s kinda what I’m writing about. So you might have it?” I asked her, “Can you send me a picture of the sheet music if you do?”
“Well, I can’t send you emails.”
Forgetting our history, reveling in the feeling that Mom and I were on an adventure again, I forgot myself and asked, “Why?”
“You blocked me.”
I love my mother.
It’s taken a lot of therapy and, if I’m being honest (which I’m almost positive at this point, I am), DRIVING to admit that fact without a descriptive follow-up like the one I’m writing now.
I love my mom, but she can be mean.
When she is mean, I block my mom.
And over and over again.
But right now, I’m going to unblock her and see if she will send me “Mother Sent Me to the Store” so I can turn this essay in and not feel like I’ve let anyone down.
I should’ve just said the Jesus and Mary Chain’s “Taste of Cindy” changed my life. It would have been true. And honest. But this dumb song seems like it’s doing more work than ever now.
She tells me she couldn’t find it in any of the books, and that she will send them all to me so I can have a look.
If I can’t find it, “Maybe go to a music store.”
Look at that. All these years later, and “Mother Sent Me to the Store.”
Lyrical prophecy.
Now the door is open and we are talking. I’m getting three emails a day. So far, so cordial.
I’ll practice the same patience she showed me when I wouldn’t stop playing this song. I’ll stay optimistic that her side of the stream will stay in the forgiving warmth of the sun/son. And I’ll keep this song alive in my head and hands since it doesn’t seem to want to show itself in real life.
CFDFCEE CEDEF CFDFCEE CEDEF
“Mother sent me to the store, told me not to stay,” forever and ever.
Even now. ◆
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About Duane
Duane Lauginiger is an artist, musician, skateboard enthusiast, audio engineer, producer, and amateur bird watcher who lives between two mountains in the Hudson Valley.
Instagram @duanelauginiger
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It happened every day for over a week
Each morning before my eyes were even open, I had the same song stuck in my head: Harry Nilsson’s “I Never Thought I’d Get This Lonely.” It crept in without hesitation and made itself comfortable, my unannounced little guest.
I couldn’t help but laugh. For a song with such a sad title, I somehow managed to have the only funny part of it wedged into my mind — the last sixty seconds.
If you’re not familiar, it ends with Harry scatting with growing intensity until his voice crescendos into manic, animal-like shrills. It’s wild and childlike and it always makes me smile. (Listen here).
That same small section played over and over in my mind. It was the strangest thing. I couldn’t figure out why it kept happening.
But every morning, bam! There was Mr. Nilsson “Da, da, da, da…”
I started getting used to it, looking forward to it almost. It became an excuse to play the song loudly on my speakers. I’d sing along as I made my coffee, shampooed my hair in the shower, giggling at the absurdity of it all. It was very Emma Stone and “Pocketful of Sunshine.”
Then one day, without warning, it switched…
What song changed your life?
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