Not Lullabies, But Close Enough

When I originally talked about my latest piece for Education.com, "Albums To Tame the Savage Beast," with my editor there, she made it clear that she wasn't looking for a list of lullaby albums, because the site focuses on kids aged preschool on up.

So these are five albums designed for quiet time for slightly older kids. Raffi's Quiet Time makes the list, natch, but rest assured that all five CDs will work well for times when everybody needs to take it down a notch.

If you fall asleep on the couch while listening some afternoon and your kids pull all the pots and pans out of the cabinets while you're sleeping, I can't be held responsible.

Listen To This: "Little Bird Hops" - Elizabeth Mitchell

Ahhhh... a new Elizabeth Mitchell mp3, just in time for Mother's Day.

"Little Bird Hops" would've sounded great on You Are My Little Bird -- mellow, with nifty guitar work, and less than 90 second, pfft, it flies away.

The Top 50 Kids Songs of All Time: Songs 21-25

Once again, somebody asked when the next entry in this series would be posted just as I planning the post. My readers are nothing if not persistent and possibly endowed with mind-reading abilities. Just another side benefit of reading this website.

With this entry, your opportunity to enter my contest to guess the Top 5 is rapidly disappearing. All entries are due before I post songs 16 through 20, which I expect to do this upcoming week. Winner gets a free CD. You might want to look at the previous entries...

Songs 26 through 30
Songs 31 through 35
Songs 36 through 40
Songs 41 through 45
Songs 46 through 50

25. "Teddy Bears' Picnic" - John Walter Bratton (music) / Jimmy Kennedy (lyrics): Amazing what you learn in putting these lists together. Did you know the music for this song was written exactly 100 years ago? And then when words were added 25 years later, the resulting recording sold more than one million copies? (Thanks, Wikipedia!) The lyrics are probably what amuses the kiddos, but I love the way the melody bounces up and around. Recorded by many (Trout Fishing in America and Garcia/Grisman, among others), but why not listen to the original million-seller here?

24. "We Are the Dinosaurs" - Laurie Berkner: Long after Jack's Big Music Show has ended production, long after CDs have stopped production for some method of music distribution we can't even fathom, little kids will be singing this song. The earworm-y beginning -- "we are the dinosaurs, marching, marching, we are the dinosaurs..." followed by the "WHADDAYA THINK OF THAT?!!" and the timpani drum is, well, the opening strains of Beethoven's Fifth of the late 20th century kids' music resurgence. (Watch Laurie's Noggin video here.)

23. "This Little Light" - Traditional: It's a Christian hymn, but it's been used in the civil rights struggle of the 1960's and in countless other secular situations. Can I hide this song under a bushel? No! (You can listen to one of my personal favorite renditions -- the very first song on Elizabeth Mitchell's very first kids' album You Are My Flower -- on Mitchell's website. Click on "flower," then "listen".)

22. "Row Row Row Your Boat - Traditional (lyrics), Eliphalet Orem Lyte (music): While I'm not quite sure I agree with Wikipedia's existential explication of the lyrics, it's definitely not the most mind-easing set of lyrics if the parent is really paying attention to the lyric. Luckily, the words are so ingrained in our brain we don't need to pay attention to it in order to sing it. (And, as a result, there is absolutely no need to give you a sound clip. It's already stuck in your brain now anyway.)

21. "Baby Beluga" - Raffi and Debi Pike: This is the biggest hit from the biggest children's musician of all time. Shouldn't this be, like, #2? I feel bad putting it at #21 instead of somewhat higher, but I don't think it's the easiest song for kids to sing by themselves. But there are a bunch of kids who are singing it with their parents (who sang it with their parents). (Listen to the song at Raffi's Myspace page.)

Shows Possibly Worth Driving Through Ten-Foot Snowdrifts For

By the end of March those of us in Phoenix are typically slathering on sunscreen and complaining that summer and 110-degree weather can't be far away. The fading days of spring would be made considerably more tolerable if we had a few Elizabeth Mitchell concerts to attend.

Unfortunately for us, Mitchell lives in New York state and as a result those folks get some sweet music to go along with their March (and April) snowstorms.

To wit: Mitchell and Uncle Rock will be playing at Levon Helm's awesome Midnight Ramble series on March 31st. The good news for the kids is that it's not at midnight, but rather at 2 PM. The bad news is that it's already sold out. (Unless you have tickets, in which case I ask you not to lord it over us.)

But fear not, Mitchell fans, for she's also helping to organize a Family Concert Series at the High Meadow School. Besides the wonderful Hayes Greenfield doing his Jazz-A-Ma-Tazz program, the series also features Peter Schickele, creator of PDQ Bach. (Classical geek note: I once owned the PDQ Bach "autobiography." Hi-larious.)

Oh, and Mitchell's playing a show with Dog on Fleas on April 15th. That would be worth driving through a snowdrift of some sort, to be sure.

Songs For Groundhog Day

A last-minute collection of songs for Groundhog Day, a short-but-sweet list:

"I Hog the Ground (Groundhog Song)" - Steve Burns / Steven Drozd: view the YouTube video for this awesome song here
"Oh Groundhog" - Elizabeth Mitchell / Lisa Loeb: Off their Catch the Moon album, this is a pleasant and mellow little ditty
"How Much Wood Could a Woodchuck Chuck?" - Danny Adlerman and Friends: It's not really a groundhog song, but this is a fun little ditty off their One Size Fits All disk that at least mentions groundhogs...