Song of the Day: Wild Mountain Thyme - Dan Zanes and Dar Williams

As a general rule, I prefer Dan Zanes' uptempo rockers to his slower, more acoustic tunes. He and his band have a ragged quality that encourages dancing and general tomfoolery. (I am in full support of general tomfoolery.) The acoustic stuff, more folky in nature, isn't bad, but it's not my first pick for what of Zanes to share with others.

If there's an exception to my general rule, it's his duets, particularly those with women. Zanes has a knack for picking female singers with whom to duet. I'll gladly listen to Dan Zanes and Barbara Brousal sing just about anything, including the phone book (in Spanish, of course). "Waltzing Matilda," with Deborah Harry or "Loch Lomond," with Natalie Merchant (off the new album, Catch That Train!) -- both are great versions of classic songs. Zanes pairs his ragged voice with the angelic voices of his partners, and the result is wonderful.

But there's no better duet in his discography than "Wild Mountain Thyme," with folk-rocker Dar Williams, on the Night Time! album. It's a wistful love song, itself a relative rarity in the Zanes discography. (He typically shies away from romantic love songs in his children's music albums.) Zanes and Williams take their turns on the verses, but sound best together, with Williams' clear voice matching perfectly with Zanes' voice. Zanes notes in the liner notes that the opening lines to the chorus, "And we'll all go together," are what he loves about the song, and it's what I love, too. It begs for singing along.

Find a link to the song here.

And, I know it's miles away from this song lyrically and musically, but I can't hear the chorus without hearing Billy Joel's "Goodnight Saigon," with its chorus "And we'll all go down together." To hear it, go here to Billy Joel's discography, click on "The Nylon Curtain" album cover and go from there.

Song of the Day: Tricycle - Lunch Money

Lunch Money is a band based in South Carolina. They play lo-fi children's rock and the songs of theirs I've heard create moments of ear-to-ear grins. So do other things, I suppose, but most of those are the result of family joy and not necessarily from children's music.

Their song "Tricycle" creates a lot of grins for me. It's a very simple song, musically -- guitar, drums, and a surfeit of handclaps. It matches an eminently hummable tune with words that have meaning to both the 3-year-old and their 33-year-old parents. "This tricycle was my brother’s tricycle / and that’s why it has this dent in the fender." It's a goofy little song, but it's sooooo much fun.

Listen to three songs off their first album Silly Reflection here.

For another song with handclaps from a band with an occasionally lo-fi aesthetic, listen to the Shins' "Kissing the Lipless" here.

(Hat tip to Bill from Spare the Rock, Spoil the Child for the Lunch Money advocacy.)

Song of the Day: Mama Don't Allow - Brady Rymer

One of my favorite kids' books is Mo Willems' Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!, which simultaneously manages to capture the mindset of a three-year-old and permits that same three-year-old to yell "No!" repeatedly. It's a safe rebellion for the child, while also allowing him or her to exert control. (It's also now a musical, apparently, but that's a whole different subject.)

The musical equivalent is the traditional "Mama Don't Allow," which allows the listener to do all sorts of things mama (a particularly strict sort) don't normally allow: hand-clappin', foot-stompin' -- you get the idea if you somehow have never heard the song before.

Brady Rymer has a nice version of the song on his latest album, Every Day Is a Birthday. It's uptempo, full of energy, but the part that I really dig (and I why I'm mentioning it here) is when Rymer sings, "Mama don't allow no backup-singin' 'round here," and, sure enough, the backup singers chime in. It's a nice, slightly meta-, slightly humorous moment in a fun version of the song that could easily be no different from countless other versions of the song.

Reminds me a little bit of They Might Be Giants' "Fibber Island," off of -- appropriately enough, given the start of this post -- No!. "Here on Fibber Island / No one sings along," and then the backup singers (or whatever the squeaky voices are) chime in "no one sings along." Just as with Rymer's version, it's a meta-moment that challenges the listener and gives them a little bit of excitement when they figure out what just happened.

You can hear Rymer's version of "Mama Don't Allow" here. And, while we're sending you to CDBaby, you can hear TMBG's "Fibber Island" here.

Song of the Day: Chocolate Milk - Scribble Jim

I know nothing about Scribble Jim. I know nothing about where he is based, what albums he has out, what his opinion of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes' engagement is.

I do know that his song "I Love Chocolate Milk" is, against all my best defenses, lodged in my brain. It's not the lyrics of the verses, which I can't really recall. It's not the melody of the verses, which I can't really recall, either. It's not even the spelling out of "I love chocolate milk," which frankly takes too much time to complete.

It's the darn chorus.

I love chocolate mi-ilk.
I-I love chocolate mi-ilk

OK, written out it's not really that impressive. But there's some harmony thing going on in the second line which I think is now permanently lodged in my brain already overstuffed with information, probably forever crowded out some other, more useful piece of information from, say, Mrs. Pittman's AP English class. All I can think of is a small, slightly unruly mob of five-year-olds bobbing their bobbed-cut heads together and raising their crayon-stained fists in unison, singing:

I love chocolate mi-ilk
I-I love chocolate mi-ilk.

That, and the chorus seems like an... homage to Joan Jett and the Blackheart's "I Love Rock 'N' Roll."

Listen to the chorus (and the rest of the song) of "Chocolate Milk" here:

As for the original, all I could come up with was a version by "Rock Lobster," an '80s retro cover band. Didn't seem worth linking to. Couldn't even find the "Weird Al" Yankovic version, "I Love Rocky Road," which seems kinda like the mid-point between "Rock 'N Roll" and "Chocolate Milk," no?

Song of the Day: One Little Cookie - Justin Roberts

Justin Roberts had his first hit, "Yellow Bus," off his 2001 album of the same name. But my favorite track on Yellow Bus has always been "One Little Cookie," deep into the album.

"One eye watchin' the kitchen door / one hand reachin' for the cookie jar / I heard this voice from up above / Showerin' down these words of love."

And from there proceeds an ever-increasing fit of self-rationalization from the narrator as he eventually eats, uh, ten cookies. He knows he shouldn't, but can't stop himself. Kids will laugh, recognizing the feelings of exhilaration from doing something they know they're not supposed to. Parents will laugh, albeit a little more ruefully. The music, powered by the guitar and drums and Hammond organ, gets increasingly loud and insistent, dovetailing nicely with the narrator's ever-quickening swiping of the cookies. It's a nice match of music and lyrics.

Maybe it's the propulsive beat, but the song triggers thoughts in me of Spoon's "Sister Jack," an urgent song that only gets more urgent as the song progresses.

Roberts can turn out great power-pop songs. This is one of them.

Go here to see a video for "One Little Cookie."
Go here to get to a video for "Sister Jack."