"Baby, Now That I've Found You" by Alison Krauss and Union Station, 2002

I should say right up front that the more famous version of this song, by the Foundations in 1967, is way better. It's WAY better. I just learned this moment by reading a little of the band's entry on Wikipedia that the Foundations were not an American soul group, as I always assumed. In fact they formed in London. Somehow they managed to craft this perfect little pop-soul tune that to me has always sounded like a bridge between the doo-wop vocal groups of the previous decade and the rousing horn-blast soul to come. So yeah. I've always loved this song. On its own, though, it wouldn't make my Top 100. It took a pop bluegrass group and a toddler on my lap for that to happen.

When my son was about two, I used to sit down with him at the computer and bring up the songs I thought his toddler ears might especially enjoy, typically ones I liked a lot as a small child. (Not that I remember toddlerhood. But I do remember being four, five, et cetera, and I remember the songs I especially enjoyed. Most of them were from the 1950s and 1960s.) One song I tried out was "Baby, Now That I've Found You."

Upon clicking once on a link, though, I found myself watching the Alison Krauss version. I watched it once with Sam, mainly because he seemed a little interested, and then found the Foundations version. He didn't care at all for that one, but over the next few months, whenever he caught me sitting at the laptop, would say, "Baby song. Listen baby song."

I'm pretty slow, but I did figure out that "baby song" meant this song, and for about a year it was the boy's favorite and the one we'd listen to together most often. I think my son prefers Krauss's soothing and slow arrangement, making the song actually sound like a song sung to a baby, rather than to a lover.