What Song Am I Describing?

There’s a joke between a friend of mine and myself.
After I’ve shared some current challenge and level of difficulty wrestling a win from the situation, he’ll use a comment like a prescription for it.
He over uses this comment so much, I can rely on it like clockwork. In fact the response has become more and more cryptic, shrinking the whole sentence down to one or two words.
And since this has been a routine over several years, it’s the shorthand between us that only we can decipher and it makes us both laugh so much over absolutely nothing.
The routine goes something like this…
Set Up:
I have set my goals for this wonderful thing, but the thing is out of reach because of this thing. I’ve tried this, this, and this, but I only get that.
And so on. After describing the situation in detail for several minutes, he will respond with
Response
What makes…
Stop! I say, because I know the rest and it’s become so silly I want no part of it.
What is it he was about to say?
He always responds with an attempt to sing a particular song.
If you’ve forgotten the lyrics, you’re not alone, which he has after shortening it so much over the years.
The problem is I can’t tell you or rather print the lyrics. Because of copyright laws.
This subject, writing about music, is timely. For now I must research how to go about asking permissions to use song lyrics and titles if I want to write about them say, in a novel or short story or essay.
You must first check for the owner through organizations like the ASCAP, That’s The American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers. Or BMI. Both can help you find the copyright owner and seek permissions.
Let’s just say Sinatra first recorded it, it won a Grammy, and won Best Song for the 32nd Academy Awards.
Hints
Ok, I’ll give you two hints. It’s a song that features an Ant, and a Ram.
It’s such a feel good song, not only did Sinatra record it, but the infamous Rat Pack performed it for the 1960 Presidential campaign for John F. Kennedy.
It’s clear many others covered the song through the years as any hit artists can’t wait to try it on for size. Just as we like to play Hamlet, or Martha, or Batman or Hedda Gabler.
It should be said that The Simpson’s Television Shown featured the song with Principal Skinner singing the song with the mob.
Well it has served artists such as Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Peter Lawford, Sammy Davis Jr. who sang it both with the Rat Pack and with a children’s chorus for that years Academy Awards.
Singers ranging from Doris Day and Bing Crosby, to the song becoming an anthem for many more including the Phillies announcer Harry Kallas, as well as the character Rocky Balboa.
Why? Because as old fashioned as it is, it is genuinely an uplifting song. That you can truly sing when life gets you down like Laverne and Shirley did.
No generation skips the song either, since it was chosen as recent as the 85th Academy Awards by a group song by Seth MacFarlane, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and Daniel Radcliffe.
It’s a high hope to write something that becomes so universally loved. It also gives the world something to cheer them up which is needed more than we wish it were.
This is why this song will still be sung in the future.
And why my friend and I will still rely on it in our short hand routine for infinity.
What do you think the song is?
2023 All Rights Reserved Julie Handy
