BATH SONGS

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 237, 6 October 1932, Page 6

BATH SONGS

Why is t<he heart of man most like a singingjird, wJiy does lie pour it out in profuse strains )f unpremeditated art, when (and often only ivlien) he is in the bath room? (asks "The Times"). That is not to be dismissed as aix idle question; it is indeed a psychological problem, liscueeed at a recent conference with becoming gravity. A professor considered bathroom eingng to be atavistic, linked -with the thymus "aecomjanying primitive ritee of lustration." Other speakers poured oold water on this idea. One jnimagina'tive gentleman refused to complicate the issue w.ith complexes. -His own argument, briefly summarised, was that we all enjoy hearing Dur own voices to the best advantage, that voices sound be«t in resonant places., that few places are more resonant than bathrooms, and tihat for this reason we sing in our baths. This explanation may seem plausible until we recollect that bath songs are at least older than bathrooms. The mid-Victorian !had to be content with his "bub," yet Hie sang like anything after it. Aflter, not during, it, for t'he morning "twb," if -lie played! the game, (had to be quite cold throughout the year. The ordeal ended, he plied a towel of hideous roughness, and- proclaimed to the world that he would sing songs of Aralby and feared no foe in shining armour. These ditties of no tone, clearly enough, were just" paeans of selfsatisfaction at having tubbed thoroughly and icily; no habit, except the kindred vice of early rising, ministered more effectively to conceit. To-day the cold "tub" is obsolete, but bath singing flourishes, with the special stimulus which causes it provoking debate a.mong psychologists. At times it can be annoying; the hotel visitor outside the bathroom in his dressing gown, convinced that melodies unheard are sweeter, is quite imoharmed by the seemingly interminable warblings of the gentleman within, whose songs without words are apt to elicit words without songs. Yet, speaking generally, ibath musk is. highly agreeable to the performer and harnileis-s to the rest of the world. The psychologists do not seem to have noticed the remarkable fact that almost all jts practitioners are of one sex; -•ainly we may listen in the passage for feminiij, jhirps 1 +rills. "