The lesson this week is that the songs we sang as children on the playground seem highly inappropriate nowadays. I’m not referring to I see London, I see France, I see someone’s underpants. but multiple songs about Chinese grocers, and the horrible variations of eany meany miney moe. There were a few others that made me cringe too.
In trying to come up with a related title this week I originally searched for “Children’s school songs” This really didn’t give me what I was looking for, it gave me a crock full of crap. I can only assume there is some untalented hack out there who fancies them selves a music writer but in reality is a shite poet. My other thought is that they played a traditional tune for their six year old, and told them to make up a song about school. This is either brilliant, assuming they are making some money from it which is doubtful, or really f’n lazy. You see, I found hundreds, if not thousands of songs, but they are all “sung to the tune of…” the same 5 or six traditional songs. My favorite was one said, “Sung to the tune of Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star – Author Unknown” the very next song had, “Sung to the tune of The Alphabet Song – Author Unknown”. Aside from them actually being the same tune, It was pretty much drilled into my head a a child that Mozart wrote the tune. While this isn’t entirely correct, it is easy enough to get the information. Now, the idea of using the the same five or six tunes for the children’s songs isn’t a new thing we’ve been doing it for a few hundred years at least. Adding to the previous example is Baa Baa Black Sheep. My ire isn’t so much from using the same tunes, it’s more of a “Wow, what load of crap” sort of thing. for example:
Zip-a-dee-do-dah, Zip-a-dee-ay-
My oh my, what a wonderful day!
Pre-K is fun–lots of learning and play-
Zip-a-dee-do-dah, Zip-a-dee-ay!It’s time for us to go, now.
We’re gonna ride the school bus-
Our new teacher’s waiting for us!Zip-a-dee-do-dah, Zip-a-dee-ay-
Beautiful feeling, beautiful day!
Laziness I tell you, laziness and shit. Then again, this may have been the process the whole time, and we were just left with what was decent. Doubt it. It’s probably a product of the modern US uneducation system.
Paddy: There’s another problem.
Narrator: Now What?
Paddy: Well, lets face it, I’m not a highlander. I can barely lift the antique silver with no one looking, let alone a caber. I don’t think the kilt is my thing.
Narrator: um…
Narrator: Maybe if you sang something?
Paddy: I’m trying not to think about your apparent school girl fetish. Sicko.