So, babies (I have discovered) learn the music they hear frequently in the car.
I am certain that aiden_freeman will have the lyrics to S.J. Tucker‘s Sirens down before he is 18 months.
So, to be subversive, I’ve decided to play fun music with complex lyrics. In order that he hopefully tries to learn them.
This is my short list so far. I’m looking for suggestions:
“It’s the End of the World as we Know It” – REM
“We Didn’t Start the Fire” – Billy Joel
“The Elements” – Tom Lehrer
“Lobachevsky” – Tom Lehrer
“Modern Major General” – Gilbert and Sullivan
I figure, something from Sondheim… not sure what.
Suggestions?
« MEMEtime: Oh, fine… Pikachu, I choose… And while we’re talking about music… »
On the slower end, how bout Everybody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen) by Baz Luhrmann?
Not familiar with this one
I will must to have be look-checking…
Pulls up iTunes.
Re: Not familiar with this one
Re: Not familiar with this one
While I like long spoken patter,
I think “Alice’s restaurant” style monolgues are a rite of passage that each wandering minstrel must come upon and tackle of their own volition 😉
Re: Not familiar with this one
Where have you been? This was all over the radio several years ago. (The version on the radio was only the patter with it’s background music. This video has a singing break that was added after the fact afik.)
I prefer “Ponderous” myself.
Where have I been?!?
Me… I have been avoiding pop radio since I worked in the industry from 88-91. I get music by referrel only.
It is sort of like how othere don’t watch TV until it releases on DVD
Re: Not familiar with this one
We listen to Alices Restaurant every Thanksgiving. Family tradition. My mother gave both my sister and me a copy on CD when we bought our own homes.
Well, Hello stranger!
And 93. It’s been a very long time.
I love Alice’s restaurant, but it really needs to be discovered by accident, I think 😉
The Luna and Venus soundtracks 🙂
when my son was small we used to sing Smoke On the Water
For Sondheim, I’d suggest music from “Into the Woods”. After all, it is fairy tales… with a slightly subversive twist. It also has the wonderful line “While her withers wither with her”. And remember… children will listen.
I must second this suggestion!
Definitely “Into the Woods”
In addition to some great lines, it has the memorable lesson: “Nice is different than good!” 🙂
Oh, what could it be from Sondheim if not “Not Getting Married”?!
I’d use “Finishing the Hat” from Sunday in the Park with George.
Preferably nothing from Sweeney Todd or Assassins (unless you want him to grow up with *your* sense of humor).
There’s also Barenaked Ladies Baby Seat, among their many patter-songs.
Bob Dylan’s Subterranean Homesick Blues.
Oh, how could I forget that!
I even posted about that about a year ago.
howzabout this one?
I’ve Been Everywhere, Johnny Cash. Give him a jump on his place-names 😉
more, and yeah, I admit I googled for the showtunes 😉
Twisted – Joni Mitchell or Lambert, Hendricks, and Ross.
Getting Married Today from Company (that’s my Sondheim suggestion)
The Nightmare Song from Iolanthe (that’s G&S again, here’s a sample:
When you’re lying awake with a dismal headache, and repose is taboo’d by anxiety
I conceive you may use any language you choose to indulge in, without impropriety;
For your brain is on fire – the bedclothes conspire of usual slumber to plunder you:
First your counterpane goes, and uncovers your toes, and your sheet slips demurely from under you;
Then the blanketing tickles – you feel like mixed pickles – so terribly sharp is the pricking,
And you’re hot, and you’re cross, and you tumble and toss till there’s nothing twixt you and the ticking.
….
Cole Porter’s Mad Dogs and Englishmen…
Kurt Weill’s Tschaikovsky from Lady In the Dark…
My Mother’s Wedding Day from Brigadoon…
Noel Coward’s Nina:
She said I hate to be pedantic but I’m driven nearly frantic when I see that unromantic sycophantic lot of sluts…
Forever wriggling their guts…It drives me absolutely nuts!
She refused to Begin the Beguine when they besot her to…
And with language profane and obscene she cursed the man who taught her to…
She cursed Cole Porter, too!
Musicals!
Both sides of the coin
from
Edwin Drood
“It’s the End of the World as we Know It” – REM
I can just see him in about three years throwing a tantrum that starts with the words, “I DECLINE!”
Not to add suggestion, but just to confirm the research. Most of the songs I associate with growing up and my childhood I indeed remember being played in the car, though I would not say it was when I was quite that young.. but from around 4-5ish. Lots of 70’s pop and country.
So what.. Worst Pies in London to wait until he’s older? 🙂
Do bear in mind…
…I sang “Christopher Robin” by Loggins and Messina, adding the re-visiting verse Kenny Loggins added when he actually HAD a child in later years.
Now my children are singing it to their children. My late twenties son plays it on the guitar for himself (and for me).
It’s wonderful, amazing, and sweet reminiscence.
“War
*huh*
Good God Ya’ll!
What is it good for?!
Absolutely NOTHING!!”
Okay, you play your kid your music, I pay my kid mine 🙂
for my reference
Re: for my reference
It’s actually the other way around. Wakko sang the states and their capitals, Yakko sang the countries of the world. I memorized both in seventh grade, and still can’t sing the sates and their capital without the fake Liverpool accent…
Sondheim suggestion: anything from a little night music…heehee.
other suggestion: ANYTHING by the Wild Band of Snee.
Of course I’ll gladly take your recommendations
Thanks to Sirens we are p0wn3d by the SWC!
We are greatly looking forward to seeing you and might even have found another venue if you like while you’re our West. 😉
*hugs*
(I did LNM… Love the show)
Flanders and Swann! Flanders and Swann! Flanders and Swann!
Hertha.
Rammstein. Angry German music! Ahahahaha!
Seeed for reggae-rap German music! Even weirder :p
The Benedictine Monks – Chant. Old-skool lyrical latin, baby!
Anything by Squonk Opera that’s more abstract singing, or pratically all of Adiemus for “learning to sing non-English phoenetically.”