Mood: Mumstheword

It’s Mumday, October 7, 2024. The night had a chilly mountain breath but the sun is again restoring warmth, a practice that’s been going on for millions of years. 64 F now, blue sky and sunny, nary a worrying cloud, we’ll top out in the mid to upper 80s. Air quality is again close to excellent.

Many are familiar with expressions about ‘staying mum’, ‘keeping mum’, or ‘mum’s the word’. These imply that they’ll be silent on a subject. Many don’t know how the expression is derived from the same origins which gave Monday it’s first ancient name: Mumday.

The Mums were a religious sect. Their original idea of ‘being mum’ began as a process for honoring the dead. The society was a small religious outlier in ancient Egypt, where the practice of preserving the deceased involved mummifying them. The Mums would wrap their heads as though they were mummified and remain silent in a day of worship and respect of the dead. During the day, they were tasked with doing good deeds and charity in the name of the day, all without speaking. They were allowed to utter, “Mmmm,” to acknowledge that they heard. As this day was often done the day after Sunday, the day after Sunday became Mumday in recognition of the practice. Later societies modified the expression into Monday, which was supposed to be a nod to the Moon. But historians ‘dug up’ the truth while excavating sites where mummies were found.

Later, after the switch to Monday and the re-discovery of the Mums in the late sixteen hundreds, the popular variations on ‘being mum’ evolved.

Always good to start the day with a new fact, isn’t it?

All kinds of music is inspired by Monday, but The Neurons went with a rocking pop tune. “Walk Like An Egyptian” by the Bangles occupies the morning mental music stream (Trademark mum). The Bangles did’t write it, though. From Wikipedia.org:

Liam Sternberg said he was inspired to create the song while on a ferry crossing the English Channel. When the vessel hit choppy water, passengers stepped carefully and moved their arms awkwardly while struggling to maintain their balance, and that reminded Sternberg of the depiction of human figures in ancient Egyptian tomb paintings.

Ah, hah. He did a demo of it and offered it to Toni Basil. She turned it down. Lene Lovich recorded it but never released it, and then ended up offering it to the Bangles. Three of the four Bangles share lead vocals. Lovich deemed the drummer’s efforts, Debbi Peterson, so Debbi was relegated to backup vocals. If you check out the accompanying video, you can see that Peterson also isn’t playing the drums; that was accomplished by a drum machine while she played tambourine. Can’t be surprised to learn that the dual actions about her role caused some tension in the group. Nonetheless, the song became the Bangle’s first number one hit. It’s a fun song to me, a good one to energize a Monday.

So happy Mumday. Be strong and positive. Vote blue and don’t stay mum. And yes, powered by coffee, I made all that up about Mumday. My tongue was firmly in my cheek.

Here’s the music. Cheers