Song of the Day: Baby Kangaroo - Joe McDermott

A quick one... Joe McDermott is an Austin, Texas-based kids' musician. "Baby Kangaroo" is off his third album, entitled Everywhere You Go. It's a catchy little ditty about the joys of owning a baby kangaroo. Near the beginning, McDermott sings...

"I think you should get a baby kangaroo
It might just be the perfect pet for you
They bounce (16x)
And they also hop"

And so it's this cute and cuddly song for 3-year-olds. But as the song progresses, the narrator quickly shows the weariness of owning a kangaroo over a long period of time...

"In about two years it will be fully grown
You'll need a bigger yard and you'll need a bigger home
Cause when he was little he loved to bounce
And now he's bigger and he loves to bounce"

The lyrics don't quite do the weariness justice (nor do they include the amusing off-the-cuff remarks). The lyrics also don't do justice to the two other things I like about the song:

1. The fact that it's sung virtually a cappella, and
2. The sole instrument accompanying the voices is what sounds very much like a ping-pong ball.

The ping-pong ball is now my favorite part of the song.

You can hear a 1-minute clip of the song here.

So now, dear reader, you have three choices for what to listen for the traditional 2nd-song-in-the-Song-of-the-Day-post. It's a Choose Your Own Adventure, Zooglobble-style!

1. For another amusing (and even more meta-) a cappella song, try "A Cappella," off Larry Sherwin's Turn Up The Music! (Go to the appropropriate link here.)

2. For accompaniment that includes a ping-pong ball, try They Might Be Giants' "Bed Bed Bed Bed Bed," from No!. (You can hear samples at many places, including CDBaby.)

3. Or, for a more traditional "Song of the Day" reference, go to the Futureheads' website and check out any of their many videos. Nobody combines punk sensibilities and four-part harmony any better. (Go here and click on "Videos." "Hounds of Love" is an awesome, awesome cover.)

Song of the Day: Rockin' the Suburbs (from "Over the Hedge") - Ben Folds

Ben Folds has five songs on the soundtrack to the upcoming animated kids'movie Over the Hedge. The soundtrack, to be released tomorrow, includes "Rockin' the Suburbs."

I know what you're saying, you're saying "Rockin' the Suburbs?" Could there be a more inappropriate song for a kids' movie soundtrack? Was "Brick" somehow unavailable?

To be fair, Folds has written new lyrics for the song. In its original version, Folds takes aim at Limp Bizkit and their fans with lyrics such as

Let me tell ya'll what it's like
Being male, middle class and white
It's a b----, if you don't believe
Listen up to my new CD
Sham on

And it only gets more profane and more angry from there, until it ends in a fury of cheesy rap-metal. It all seemed a bit too much; making fun of Bizkit and the attitude of their fans (even at the time) was akin to shooting fish in a barrel. Sleepy fish in a barrel. It was overkill, perhaps, but amusing, and fully thought out in execution.

So now for this new movie, which tells the story of some timid wood animals facing an encroaching suburbia, Folds has turned his aim from 20-year-old white males to, er, soccer moms?

Let me tell y'all what it's like
Watching idol on a friday night
In a house built safe and sound
On indian burial ground
Sham on
(Rest of the lyrics are here)

From there, Folds turns his aim to cookie-cutter suburban development and how houses all look the same. It's as if he thought that five-year-old kids have a working knowledge of Jane Jacobs, enough to nod sagely at the critique. It's a song lobbed completely over the kids' heads at their parents, and, sadly, it's not telling us anything we don't know. (You either agree completely, or don't care at all.)

Now, the song also includes a bizarre voice-over by frequent Folds collaborator William Shatner, which must be in character (Shatner does have a part), as Shatner rails on and on in the persona of a slightly too nosy neighbor. Again, vaguely amusing for the adults, kinda odd for the kids. And, most strangely, the song ends in the same cheesy rap-metal that's part of the original, only now it's devoid of any context.

I really like Ben Folds, and I'm sure he was excited to help out with a kids' movie soundtrack (as he has at least one child of his own), but this is one song mostly likely over the he...ads.

You can check out the Over The Hedge soundtrack website (with radio) here. If you think I'm gonna link to a Limp Bizkit song, you're nuts, but if you go to the Ben Folds Five website and click on "Music," you can hear my favorite Folds song, "The Battle of Who Could Care Less."

Song of the Day: Wake Up - The Ditty Bops

Last night I went to an open house at the school where our daughter will be attending kindergarten in the fall. The youngster was a bundle of nerves -- so hyper that a brownie and ice cream calmed her down. I was trying to encourage her to say hello to her (prospective) teachers, to look around, but she just bounced off the walls with her friends. I can tell she's really going to enjoy kindergarten (she went nuts -- or more so -- in the music room with all the instruments out), but there is also the realization that she's reaching another milestone.

Let's start the "Song of the Day" with the "adult" song -- "Wake Up," off the Ditty Bops' eponymous debut album. The Ditty Bops write wry folk-rock songs -- think Suzanne Vega perhaps, but somehow "Wake Up" got played on XM Kids one day. Perhaps this is why:

"Don't cause a scene / Mind your manners / Speak only if spoken to / You know what you are not do / Watch and learn
What if you never were short for time / All meetings cancelled clocks stopped at nine / Without alarms the silence beams / Watch and learn"

Yeah, OK. Kinda makes me wonder about all those boundaries we're setting. Would it really be so bad if the kids ran around outside until late at night? (Please don't answer that.) The lyrics are written to get adults to look at their own lives, but it's raising questions for the parents out there, no?

For a similar perspective, but targeted much more at the parents, check out Brady Rymer's "Dilly Dally Daisy," which, in the midst of a song about a cute but perhaps frustrating-to-the-parent daughter, includes these lines:

"Oh man, I wanna let her go
And see the world her own way, ya know?
'Cause pretty soon they're gonna get her in line
They'll say, 'Stand up straight! Tuck in your shirt!
Know where you're going and get there on time!' "

Those lines will go right over the head of the 4-year-old and right to the heart of the parent.

There aren't a lot of songs about how one chooses to be a parent. Those two, one accidentally, one on purpose, are two of the few.

Listen to "Wake Up" here. Listen to a clip of "Dilly Dally Daisy" here.

Song of the Day: Let's Shake - Dan Zanes and Friends

I don't know whether Dan Zanes intended to write a "lead single" for his new album, Catch That Train, but it's got one. "Let's Shake" is infectious, radio- (or at least Noggin-, er, Playhouse Disney-)ready, and not quite like anything else on the CD. Now, that's not a slam on the song, because Zanes' albums invariably sound a little like a Putumayo CD in their wide variety of cultures and musical styles, except that it's all from one artist and his band. But unlike the rest of the album, assiduous in pulling songs from other cultures and times, "Let's Shake" is a little bit of garage rock, sounding very 2006. It sounds similar to "House Party Time" off Zanes' last CD, House Party, except a little faster and even more stripped down. (Or as stripped down as any song with what sounds like a tuba among the instruments can be.)

Lest I be misconstrued, I have nothing against "lead singles." U2's "Vertigo" doesn't sound much like the rest of "How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb." Doesn't mean that it (or the rest of the CD) isn't a lot of fun.

Unfortunately, the streaming of Catch That Train! at Amazon has stopped, so for the moment you can't hear the whole thing. Go there to hear samples (and note an updated and stepped-up release date of May 9). Go here to see U2's page for the Vertigo single (you'll probably only be able to see/hear snippets).

Song of the Day: Great Big World - Anne Hathaway

(Because "Song-of-the-Whenever-I-Get-Around-To-It" isn't nearly as catchy...)

The Little Red Riding Hood spoof Hoodwinked wasn't a huge hit -- wink-and-you-miss-it, you might say. (In any case, I winked, and I missed it.)

But I've heard "Great Big World" a few times, and it's almost enough to make me want to see the movie. It's the typical "intro" musical song, where a character sets the stage, so to speak, for the events to follow. These seemed to be a lot bigger in the animated Disney musicals of the early 1990s ("Belle" from Beauty and the Beast is the best example, a textbook example really, of how to write one of these tunes.) Lyrically, "Great Big World" talks about just that, an apropos subject for a lead character who I'm assuming is about to walk into the woods. (Without having seen Hoodwinked, I don't know if it sets the stage visually as well as "Belle" does in its movie.)

Sonically, "Great Big World" harkens back to those big bright poppy tunes of the 1960s, with a massive wall of sound, especially on the chorus. But it's Hathaway's delivery that fully sells me on the song. Hathaway has a clear voice that isn't perfect or pitch-corrected to death (at least, it doesn't sound that way to me). And she delivers the lyrics with a slightly sarcastic attitude that makes me smile ("They say that goodies / Make the world / Go round"). The combination of the retro-pop and Hathaway's voice reminds me of the Bangles in their late-80s heyday. Good song all the way 'round.

You can hear a sample of "Great Big World" (and every other track from Hoodwinked's soundtrack here). You can see some Bangles videos, including the sorta "Great Big World"-esque (but not really) "Walk Like an Egyptian" here. (Go on, you know you want to.) And there are hundreds of sites where you can get mp3's from the Beauty and the Beast soundtrack, but you really ought to just see the movie if you haven't already. It's by far my favorite animated Disney musical (excluding those from the wizards at Pixar, of course.) And now, thanks to my daughter, I'm watching it repeatedly once more.