I interrupt my swan song to sing praises to Musicophilia

I knew right away that this book related to my mother's Alzheimer's, which robbed her of much of her memory, most of her self-confidence, and even her ability to knit and sew on buttons.  But it also relates to every other aspect of our lives and even my teaching and learning language.  I tried to convince my students that the silly songs could help them remember, but if they ever understood, they soon forgot, and I gave up on songs...sort of. 

On page 335, Oliver Sacks relates a story about a dying man who 'gathered his last bit of animation and sang for me--{Down in the Valley" and "Goodnight, Irene"--with all the delicacy and tenderness of his earlier days.  It was his swan song; a week later he was dead.'

I hadn't realized that Oliver Sacks wrote about Temple Grandin--An Anthropologist on Mars.

Someone describes a man who could perform the needs and tasks of the day if they were organized in song.

"He does everything singing to himself.  But if he is interrupted and loses the thread, he comes to a complete stop, doesn't know his clotheees--or his own  body.  He sings all the time--eating songs, dressing songs, bathing songs, everything.  He can't do anything unless he makes it a song."

Oliver Sacks says "Music has the power to embed sequences and to do this when other forms of organization (including verbal forms) fail."    As examples he gives the ABC song and Tom Lehrer's song to remember all the chemical elements!