Shel Silverstein's "Underwater Land," uh, Resurfaces

With all the talk right now about another certain kids book writer who first drew national attention more than 40 years ago, it seems like good a time as any for Underwater Land to make a big splash. (If you're gonna groan at a simple joke like that, you should probably just stop reading right now because the album's definitely not for you.)

It's the brainchild of Shel Silverstein, well-known poet and author (Where the Sidewalk Ends, anyone?, The Missing Piece, lots of other stuff you probably read growing up and still have floating around your household), not to mention songwriter (hello, "A Boy Named Sue"). Underwater Land is a whole nautically-themed group(er) of poems (oh, c'mon, I'm tellin' you, the whole album's got 'em) set to music, sung mostly by Pat Dailey (that's Shel and Pat in a picture below) with Silverstein making a few vocal appearances. The album first appeared posthumously in 2002, but it's getting a new lease on life. Freed from Davy Jones' locker, so to speak.

Anyway, Shel Silverstein fans may want to give the samples at the site a good listen. After the jump, the tracklisting (finally, a second kids song about cuttlefish!), that picture of Shel and Pat, and Shel reading one of his earlier works...
Underwater Land tracklisting:

1. Underwater Land
2. Land Shark
3. Fish Breath
4. Cuttlefish
5. Bubba Barracuda
6. Ickity-Ackity
7. Found Flounder
8. Fred the Trout
9. Dale and Shale’s Big Fish Tail Sale
10. Captain Octopus
11. Sea Shell
12. The Minnows
13. Poor Anna
14. Speedy The Snail
15. The Clam
16. Fish Guts
17. Empty Dolphin Tank

Shel Silverstein - "Ickle Me, Pickle Me, Tickle Me Too" from Where the Sidewalk Ends [YouTube]

Comments

[Michael]

In my house we love Shel's poetry books. But it will be tough to top Paper Moon's "Your Attitude Towards Cuttlefish." That's a 5-star song right there.

[Katy L]

We discovered this CD in our library about 4 or 5 years ago, and we all loved it--Silverstein's usual clever way with words and nonsense, set to a lot of sea shanty-style music. I remember listening to it while on a long drive with my then two pre-schoolers, and the miles flew by.