So I know I promised a photo post, but last night as I was falling asleep, I was giving some thought to the rash of new children's music coming out lately...so I decided a post about that was in order.

A few years ago, the band They Might be Giants, made a kids album that was geared to parents and kids called "NO!", what a great album, in fact it is where I found a track called "In the Middle, In The Middle, In The Middle", which is a song I found years ago, on a soundtrack of television commerical songs, like the Armour hot dog song. You know,
"Hot dogs, Armour Hot Dogs
What kinds of kids eat Armour Hot Dogs?
Big kids, little kids, kids who climb on rocks
fat kids, skinny kids, even kids with chicken pox
love hot dogs, Armour Dot Dogs
The dogs kids love to bite! "

Anyway, the song was a public service song from New York City about crossing the street. A catchy little tune, that to those who don't appreciate the finer points of children's music in general, could be misconstrued as annoying.

Recently, Bare Naked Ladies, and Lisa Loeb have made their own children's albums.
And there are other "adult alternative" artists, or bands, such as Cake, Sarah MacLachlan, Darius Rucker from Hootie and the Blowfish, who have contributed to collaborations, like "For the Kids" and "For the Kids II"

I am particularly fond of the Cake cover of Mahna Mahna and Sarah MachLachlan's covers of Rainbow Connection. One of my favorite songs. In fact, my husband's father sang it at our wedding...in the rain!! Ahhh happy times!!

I think what I like best about this rash of new children's music is that I can share my love of music and the bands I really love, with my own children.

In fact, Donovan and I have a favorite song from BNL( Bare Naked Ladies) is a track called
"Raisins"...
I think the key to good writing and recording children's music, is that it catches the child's attention and doesn't talk down to kids. It has to be about subjects they can relate to, but yet be fun and it does not necessarily have to make sense.
For example, check out some of the the lyrics to "Raisins":

Raisins come from grapes,
People come from apes,
I come from Canada.

I came in first place,
In a non-existent race,
To rebuild the Parthenon.

The Parthenon’s in Greece,
Or was it in Grease 2?
I can’t keep my movies straight.

When I make mistakes,
I use a lot of salt,
Salt makes mistakes taste great.

I don’t want to be a bother, but I think the phone’s for you......

I think it is easy for these artists to appeal to the younger set since its easy to write songs that are fun, yet make no sense. They have been doing that for years, only trying to appeal to adults.
as demonstrated in these lyrics, from One Week, a number one song for BNL in the early 90's:


Hold it now and watch the hoodwink
As I make you stop, think
You'll think you're looking at Aquaman
I summon fish to the dish, although I like the chalet swiss
I like the sushi cause its never touched a frying pan
Hot like wasabi when I bust rhymes
Big like Leann Rhimes
Because I'm all about value
Bert Kaempferts got the mad hits
You try to match wits
You try to hold me but I bust through
Gonna make a break and take a fake
I'd like a stinkin' achin' shake
I like vanilla, it's the finest of the flavours
Gotta see the show, cause then you'll know
The vertigo is gonna grow
'Cause it's so dangerous, you'll have to sign a waiver

As you can see, it wasn't hard to switch gears for them when it came to kids music, they did not stray far from what they knew.

I suggest that you go to check them out. I have Rhapsody and I know you can hear all of the songs I have listed here on their site. It's definitely worth a listen!!

Anyway, I am glad to be able to share these artists with my kids, it gives us something in common to enjoy.
I only wish there were more artists that would try to bridge the generation gap through music. Can you imagine the Beatles, or Janis Joplin making kid's music? I wonder what kind of people we would be if we and our parents bonded over THAT music!!!

It's a trend I would follow happily.


Until the next time,