Mrs. Brown, You've got a lovely daughter

For the years that my daughters shared school with Craig, there was a running agreement between my daughters and their mother that when then finally had a boy of interest they would send him to our doorstep to sing, "Mrs. Brown, you've got a lovely daughter". To which cue, my wife would then invite the boy in with the phrase, "Come in and have a cookie". We waited a long time.

Eventually, with Reija headed out to Stanford, the girls decided their mother needed some encouragement, so they roped Craig and Mark Hendricks into coming over and singing the song to their mother - Which they did. There was a knock on the door, and when Jolene answered the door, the two broke out in song. Unfortunately, the boys had never heard the song, and didn't know about the rock-lilt that it was supposed to have a la, Herman's Hermits, and so it took Jolene a great while to recognize the song. Nevertheless, she remembered in time, to ask the boys to come in for cookies when they were done.

I suppose that 95 percent of the blog readers have no clue as to what the song is supposed to sound like, any more than Craig did - so just imagine Craig singing a U2 song, like "Meet Virginia", or "Drops of Jupiter" by Train, as if it were church hymn, and you'll get an idea of what it sounded like. It was, however, such a jolly thing, that we, as parents, have since arranged to have groups of boys show up at Reija and Rebekka's respective birthdays to sing the song to them. We have, however, in light of Craig initials somber and earnest rendition of the song, we have prepared the singers by sending them an mp3 of the Herman's Hermits original.

--Phil Matheson