When Quando Fails No Matter How Many Times You Say It

I was inspired by this video I saw on FB the other day about nursing home patients who reacted very positively to music from their era and decided to try it out on my father who is convalescing in hospital.

The trouble with doing that was that my father was never known to like music of any form. But last Saturday when we brought Kai to visit his Gong Gong, I suddenly recalled the only song I’ve ever heard my father sing in my whole life: Quando Quando Quando. I quickly downloaded the Engelbert Humperdinck version from iTunes and played it on my iPhone, waiting for the same excited reaction from my father.

He frowned, looked suspiciously at the phone, then at me, then around the ward. Then when the song ended and I asked if he liked the song, he mumbled as much as his Parkinson’s-gripped vocal chords could muster: “No”, three times.