One of my favorite songs for one of my favorite months: “June Is Bustin’ Out All Over” from the Broadway musical Carousel– music by Richard Rogers and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein. Have a great June!

This is a creative interpretation of The Birthday Song sung in English while signed in ASL (American Sign Language). It is more a compilation of different ways people sign Happy Birthday in ASL than it is an answer to “how do you sign Happy Birthday in ASL?” It is difficult to sing these words and produce these signs at the same time, because the signs do not match the words verbatim— it’s like trying to rub your belly and pat your head at the same time.

I chose these sign couplets with similar handshapes to create sign rhymes; for example, the line CAN’T-WAIT ARRIVE-BIRTHDAY BABY YOU uses the B handshape for all four signs, the line CONDUCT-SONG-BIRTHDAY, TUG-EAR-BIRTHDAY uses the “Closed X” handshape for both signs, the line THRILLED BIRTHDAY uses the “Open 8″ handshape for both signs, and the line HAPPY BIRTH DAY TO YOU uses the 1 handshape twice and the B handshape thrice. I saved the “regular” signs for last, as the last two lines are the two most popular ways to sign Happy Birthday.

I thank the deaf people from other regions from whom I learned the signs CONDUCT-SONG-BIRTHDAY and EAR-TUG-BIRTHDAY, and I thank YouTuber hippiesordo for the line “YOU BORN TODAY, WOO-HOO.” This song is dedicated to my ASL interpreter friend Paul on whose birthday I made this video.

Here’s me being, well, me! I had just got an HD mini camcorder so I could record videos in HD and fill up those widescreen video frames on YouTube, Facebook, and Flickr, and here I was singing a song off the top of my head, just playing around and trying it out.

I had intended to do a more rehearsed video that told people I was moving to HD. I had never intended this silly, off-the-cuff home movie for the public, but then I thought, “There’s no substitute for spontaneity!” and decided to go for it and post this one.

Enjoy the silliness– now in HD and CC!

When I was twenty years old, I made up a couple of outgoing greetings for my answering machine based on an old TV show theme song and a showtune from Bye Bye Birdie. The TV show theme song was from I Love Lucy and the song from Bye Bye Birdie was “Talk to Me” which is originally sung from a telephone booth. Anyway, I created these outgoing greetings and I left them on my answering machine for a little while, and then I felt sort of silly about them and afraid of what people might think, so I took them off. But now here we are in the Age of YouTube, and it’s—gosh—almost twenty-five years later, and I figured, “Why not? Just for fun, share them with the world.” So, here are my silly outgoing greeting songs that I created in 1988. Hope you enjoy!

Talk to me. Don’t hang up. Please talk to me.
I don’t care what you say. Talk to me.
Leave your name and telephone—
Gratefully, when I come home,
I will listen very near.
Then I’ll call you, dear.
Talk to me. Leave a message. Talk to me!
And I’ll get back to you— talk to me.

This is Daniel, and I’m not home.
If I were, I’d pick up the phone.
Just leave your name and a message—
I’ll call you before you can rhyme “message.”
Keep it simple and not too long.
If you’d like, you can sing a song!
Just leave your name and number,
And then, you have yourself a wonderful day!
Ba-ba-ba Ba-ba-ba-Ba-ba-bah Ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-bah!

Original music for “Talk to Me” written by Charles Strouse with lyrics by Lee Adams; new lyrics by Daniel Greene.
Original music for I Love Lucy theme song written by Eliot Daniel; new lyrics by Daniel Greene.

This song, which I remember from a record my mom gave me when I was a little kid, is called Music! Music! Music! It was written in 1949 by Stephen Brewer and Bernie Baum, and it was popularized in the same year by singer Teresa Brewer.

This is me singing Cole Porter’s song “I Concentrate on You.” I used YouTube’s “Captions and Subtitles” feature to upload a subtitle file. I hand-coded the subtitle file in BBEdit using the subtitle (.sub) format. To view the video with captions, click the up-arrow button on the bottom-right corner of the screen and choose CC, English: English captions.

I sing this Christmas song and simultaneously express it in signs from ASL (American Sign Language). I purposely adapted some of the hand-shapes to create sign-rhymes. While no song that is simultaneously sung and signed is truly ASL, I do hope that I have created something here that can be enjoyed by both hearing and deaf people. I also believe that people of all faiths can appreciate the hope that each newborn child brings: that he or she may help to heal this world.

I called my mom on Mother’s Day and sang her this song from Peter Pan that she used to sing to me when tucking me in at night. I tried to subtitle, but I couldn’t figure it out. The lyrics are:

The angel voice that bids you goodnight
Kisses your cheek, whispers ‘sleep tight’
Your mother and mine
Your mother and mine

The helping hand that guides you along
Whether you’re right, whether you’re wrong
Your mother and mine
Your mother and mine

What makes mothers all that they are?
Might as well ask what makes a star

Ask your heart to tell you her worth
Your heart must say heaven and earth
Another word for divine
Your mother and mine
Your mother and mine

Here are the lyrics to this 1946 popular song by Mack Gordon:

You make me feel so young.
You make me feel so “Spring has sprung”,
And every time I see you grin
I’m such a happy individual.

The moment that you speak
I want to go and play hide-and-seek.
I want to go and bounce the moon
Just like a toy balloon.

You and I are just like a couple of tots
Runnin’ across the meadow
Pickin’ up lots of forget-me-nots.

You make me feel so young.
You make me feel there are songs to be sung,
Bells to be rung, wonderful fling to be flung.
And even when I’m old and gray
I’m gonna feel the way I do today
‘Cause you – you make me feel so young.

You make me feel so young.
You make me feel so young.
Ooo – you make me feel so young.

And here are the lyrics:

Come with me / and you’ll be / in a world of pure imagination / Take a look / and you’ll see / into your imagination

We’ll begin / with a spin / traveling in a world of my creation / What we’ll see / will defy / explanation

If you want to view paradise / simply look around and view it / anything you want to, do it / want to change the world? / there’s nothing to it

There is no / life I know / to compare with pure imagination / living there / you’ll be free / if you truly wish to be