The Monkees "Sweet Young Thing"

There's a line in Dave Kish's radio station biography, where he writes about learning to read by looking at album covers.  I always thought that was funny, if slightly improbable.

Then, not long ago, I was looking at list of songs by The Monkees, and I saw the title "Sweet Young Thing," a deeper cut off their first album, and it brought back a flash of a memory.

I was obsessed with The Monkees, right about the same time I was learning to read.

And I remember holding an album cover in my hand and sounding out the title to this song:

"Sssweeeet  Ewwwing Thing.  Sweet Eww-ing Thing."

From my "Learning To Read" work in school, I knew the word "Sweet" and I knew the word "Thing" and I knew the word "You."

But I didn't know what "You" with an "NG" on the end was.

Listening to the record, I figured it out . . .

Thus began a long history of learning words and phrases and definitions, via music.

All this week, I'll post about how a love of music has taught me a vocabulary word or two.


Hear the song on Youtube.