Jenny M is back to review some music for us. Welcome back, Jen!
When it comes to my daughters listening to music, my approach is: it’s either going to be all theirs, or all mine. By theirs I mean, truly for them--super duper dorky and funny. You know, geared for children. By mine, I mean stuff I like, which I hope rubs off on them the way John Denver inexplicably rubbed off on me after years of my father playing it on the stereo while we cleaned the house.
I generally don’t look for kids’ music that I want to rock out to privately, too. So I am not a big fan of the folks who make kids’ music that is supposed to be cool for adults too, as in “if you squint your ears it kinda sorta sounds like Everything But the Girl.” I mean, if I want to listen to Everything But the Girl, then I AND MY KIDS are going to listen to Everything But the Girl. And later I will put on Wee Sing Silly Songs, because those tunes aren’t even trying to be anything but the kind that make kids go nuts and that make grownups wonder while they’re humming “The Ants Go Marching” days later. I grew up singing “John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt,” and by golly, my kids will too.
So then Barenaked Ladies come out with their own kids’ CD, Snacktime, and here’s one of my favorite adult bands singing for children. Yes!
OK, talk about an internet rabbit hole. My friend Micky sent me the link to Television Tunes the other day. I sort of wish she never had. The site has almost 6000 TV theme songs. I can’t get the song from Cheers out of my head to save my life. I made Sy a little mix of all of her favorite TV theme songs yesterday while she was napping. She was so geeked out she started jumping around dancing, meanwhile begging to hear the Clifford Puppy Days theme song just ONE MORE TIME!
The songs are not superior quality at all, nor are they for sale, but you can download them for your listening pleasure and send along a donation to the site if you really want to ensure that the theme song to CHiPs will be there for you always.
Must.Put.The.Computer.Down.
My husband’s all time favorite Sesame Street song is the all cast sing-a-long, “Do De Duck.” Even Kermit makes a cameo. He found it on You Tube and hoped Sy would feel the same way. She could have cared less. He was undaunted. He decided to change his strategy so that she too, could learn the brilliance that is a Sesame Street song and dance number. His next ploy was to come home with the “What’ the Name of That Song?” DVD, a 35th anniversary DVD with seventeen terrific Sesame Street songs, including Bert’s “Doin the Pigeon,” a hilarious Jerry Lee Lewis homage, “Eight Balls of Fur,” and “Do De Duck” to name a few. Sy was about two at the time, and again, could have cared less. The allure of Sesame Street eluded her. She’d watch the show for about three minutes and ask to turn it off. She preferred Maisy to Sesame Street and Queen Latifah’s rap about a missing letter O scared her. Rog did not give up.
