As Scalzi wrote some time back, "one of a parent's more minor but nevertheless important responsibilities is to make sure his or children grow up with a love of music that doesn't totally suck." I was reminded of this the other day while driving around, when "American Pie" came on the radio. I have weirdly distinct memories of listening to this in the car as a small child (young enough to have absolutely no idea what a "levee" was, or why one would drive a Chevy to it), which got me to thinking about music and FutureBaby.
This, of course, presented a wonderful opportunity for cat-vacuuming, as I went through my music library looking for vaguely kid-appropriate songs. I don't have any really solid criteria for this, other than that they should be generally happy, bouncy songs with no cuss words or hugely inappropriate themes. Or, possibly, lullabies. This, of course, cuts out large swathes of my music collection, but given that I have well over 10,000 songs on my computer, the resulting list still runs to 240 songs and better than 14 hours.
It'd be a shame to just waste all that cat-vacuuming, of course, so I'll post the resulting playlist to the blog in chunks. Here are the songs by artists who, in iTunes's opinion, begin with the letters A or B.
- "Take On Me," a-ha (The synths! The high notes!)
- "Lost In The Supermarket," The Afghan Whigs (They're my favorite band, and we danced to it at our wedding)
- "Speed Of The Sound Of Loneliness," Alabama 3
- "Down To The River To Pray," Alison Krauss
- "I'll Fly Away," Alison Krauss & Gillian Welch (The O Brother, Where Art Thou soundtrack is a rich source of material)
- "Jessica," The Allman Brothers Band
- "Blue Sky," The Allman Brothers Band
- "Begin the Beguine," Artie Shaw & Artie Shaw & His Orchestra
- "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down," The Band (Anything with a "La-la-la" chorus is a good candidate)
- "If I Had $1000000," Barenaked Ladies (There would be more BNL here-- most notably "Life In a Nutshell"-- but my music library is having Issues with their tunes)
- "Come Together," The Beatles
- "Maxwell's Silver Hammer," The Beatles
- "Octopus's Garden," The Beatles
- "The Continuing Story Of Bungalow Bill," The Beatles
- "Piggies," The Beatles
- "Rocky Racoon," The Beatles
- "Birthday," The Beatles (Abbey Road and the White Album are the soundtrack for my very earliest memories. Might as well pass that on.)
- "Catch My Disease," Ben Lee (The title sounds creepy, but the toy piano is brilliant.)
- "Into the Dark," Ben Lee
- "California Stars," Billy Bragg & Wilco
- "Secrets Of The Sea," Billy Bragg & Wilco
- "Theme From Rawhide," The Blues Brothers (Rollin', rollin', rollin'...)
- "Song 2," Blur (Woo-hoo!)
- "I'll Be Your Baby Tonight," Bob Dylan
- "Tonight I'll Be Staying Here With You," Bob Dylan
- "No Woman No Cry (Live)," Bob Marley & The Wailers
- "Three Little Birds," Bob Marley & The Wailers
- "Buffalo Soldier," Bob Marley & The Wailers (A little cultural diversity...)
- "Mack The Knife," Bobby Darin
- "Closer to Free," The BoDeans
- "Hook 'em Cow," Boiled In Lead ("Rasputin" is a little too risque...)
- "I Wanna Come Home," The Bottle Rockets
- "I'm Goin' Down," Bruce Springsteen (Down, down, down, down...)
- "Girls In Their Summer Clothes," Bruce Springsteen
- "Open All Night," Bruce Springsteen
- "Buffalo Gals," Bruce Springsteen
- "Erie Canal," Bruce Springsteen
- "My Oklahoma Home," Bruce Springsteen
- "Pay Me My Money Down," Bruce Springsteen
- "Froggie Went a Courtin'," Bruce Springsteen
- "Erie Canal," Bruce Springsteen & The Sessions Band
- "My Oklahoma Home," Bruce Springsteen & The Sessions Band
- "Open All Night," Bruce Springsteen & The Sessions Band
- "American Land," Bruce Springsteen & The Sessions Band (Pretty much the whole Seeger Sessions record would work...)
What am I missing?
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I've wondered for years how "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" always seems to be treated as a great song for children. It has, after all, a fun, bouncy tune. People seem to always be forgetting, however, that the song is about Maxwell Edison killing his girlfriend, teacher and then a judge. Doesn't that fit under the category of "hugely inappropriate themes"?
(I don't dislike the song, or the Beatles. I own the White Album. But if you're discriminating music based on lyrics and theme, a young child would be able to figure out that this song is about killing people at an earlier age than figuring out that scores of other songs are about sex or other such things.)
Clark beat me to the comment about "Maxwell's Silver Hammer". I'd suggest replacing it with "Here Comes The Sun".
Is there any classical music in your library? Aaron Copland's Rodeo and El Salón México would make good candidates. So would much of Bach's music (although iTunes would put that under J). I mention this because at age 1 my favorite piece of music was Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture--if you know that piece, you don't have to ask why.
"Maxwell's Silver Hammer" is on there because it's a song that I remember dancing around to as a little kid. The chorus is just great for jumping around to, and when I was three, I didn't really care about the lyrical content.
I'm not sold on the idea that the lyrics can't have anything dark in them, as I don't think little kids are usually aware of what the words mean. For that matter, lot of adults aren't really aware of the lyrical content of a lot of popular songs-- Exhibit A is, of course, "Born in the USA".
I tried to avoid really ridiculously inappropriate songs, but I was more concerned with keeping away from swear words-- no need to go expanding FutureBaby's vocabulary too much too fast...
Sticking to the A-B part of the list, you might want to add some really classic rock and roll, like Bill Hailey and Buddy Holly. The latter would also help in eventually explaining "American Pie."
On a broader aspect of small kids and music, my daughter and granddaughter both responded very well to being "danced" (held while adult is dancing) out of crankiness and often to sleep to up tempo old timey or Celtic string band music.
I'd also like to heartily endorse the three award winning children's folk albums by local Hudson Valley singer, Priscilla Herdman, combining excellent singing and musicianship with a delightful selection of traditional and contemporary material.
http://www.priscillaherdman.com/ph__220.htm
Priscilla has a bunch of good material on iTunes, but unfortunately nothing from the children's albums.
My kids used to ask for that Barenaked Ladies song ALL THE TIME!!
Not sure I would inflict Greg Dulli on any impressionable youths, though.
How about Miriam Makeba with Pata Pata?
http://youtube.com/watch?v=85_9mKTg_Do
Or this record, if you can find it. The first track was my absolute favourite between at least 3 and 12. I still have no idea how my dad ended up with a copy in Denmark in the early seventies.
My daughter absolutely loved Celtic music and Early Renaissance music as a baby. While it doesn't fit in the A-B category, and has nothing to do with the previous observation, I'd highly recommend Pete Seeger's Children's Concert at Town Hall. The kids sing along, but not in a hokey, over-miked Barney&Friends kind of way. The songs are all great, as long as you don't have a problem with Seeger's progressive politics (which I don't think you do).
Well, to add to your BEatles recommendations, may I suggest "Good Day Sunshine", "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds", and "Two of Us".
I would definitely append Here Comes The Sun and Blackbird (would do as a lullaby in a pinch, IMO) to your Beatles list. I think the Bunny Hop portion of the last track on Antler Dance would be good, too.
Not sure I would inflict Greg Dulli on any impressionable youths, though.
That's not really a representative Greg Dulli performance, though. Well, it sort of is, as he does a little of the sultry lounge-singer thing, but it's not a creepy song at all. Really.
I would definitely append Here Comes The Sun and Blackbird (would do as a lullaby in a pinch, IMO) to your Beatles list. I think the Bunny Hop portion of the last track on Antler Dance would be good, too.
I'm not that fond of "Here Comes the Sun" myself, these days, but it's probably a good addition.
The "Bunny Hop" part would probably be ok, but I think the rip I have has it paired with their loud and sinister cover of "State Trooper," which wouldn't be ok.
My son loves "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds" except he always changes the words to "Lucy in the Sky with God." Since that moves slightly away from the LSD reference towards a different form of enlightenment, I'm not troubled.