Singing in Packs

We attended a singalong at our church tonight. Our church, which we joined a couple years ago, is part of a mainline Protestant denomination; like many such churches a sizeable portion of the congregation is aging. By hosting the singalong, I think the hope was to give pleasure to those parishioners who wanted to sing the "old favorites," while introducing a few of the newer hymns to the congregation.

I attended church rarely as a child, so I was pretty much an open book when my wife and I starting looking for churches to join. Besides such elevated things as "spiritual fit" and such practical things as "child care," I think I subconsciously wanted a church with a strong music program, singing hymns. Not praise bands, which I just cannot get into, but the old stuff. As a person who had a few years of organ lessons in my youth, I guess I have a deep-seated predilection for Bach. And the church we eventually joined definitely had a strong music program. A good choir and music director, a good organist, even the occasional bell choir performance. And no praise band.

The problem is, as someone who's sitting in the pews and not in the choir, there can often be a lot of silence surrounding me. Much like riding a bike you don't forget how to read music once you learn. And so even though I never had any choral training and don't have a "beautiful" voice, I feel like I stand out a bit, just because I'm actually singing. I hoped that many people who don't sing would attend tonight, but I'm not sure how successful it ended up being in that regard.

My other goal in attending was to have my daughter hear a whole bunch of people singing in packs. You see, church is almost the only place people sing together on a regular basis. If you play basketball or softball, you can join any number of city recreational leagues to play with others with similar interests. Scrapbooking? I gather there are parties where people can share their oddly-shaped scissors. Comic books (or, er, graphic novels)? Go to the comics store or even (now) the public library. But singing? Dan Zanes' talk notwithstanding, there's really nothing available for the recreational singer outside of a church setting. I wonder if there will be any church choirs 30 years from now if kids aren't singing on a recreational basis.

My daughter sat patiently through about 45 minutes of hymns she didn't recognize before begging to go to the playground, which we did. (Monkey bars rule, in her eyes.) I think she enjoyed the singalong, though I think she was disappointed that they didn't sing her favorite hymn, "Glory, Glory, Hallelujah," an African-American spiritual which is great for the young'uns because it's a simple melody with simple, repetitive lyrics. I hope she also enjoyed hearing her daddy and all the other adults (and the couple other kids) sing with loud voices and smiles on their faces. She may not like the hymns, but hopefully she'll continue to sing the first verse to "London Bridge Is Falling Down" over and over again.

Elizabeth Mitchell has two or three songs with religious/spiritual background on her two CDs. You can listen to "This Little Light of Mine" and "So Glad I'm Here" at her website. Great stuff, even if you don't care about church.

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?

Review: Green Gorilla, Monster & Me - Ralph's World

Ralph Covert released his sixth Ralph's World album, Green Gorilla, Monster & Me, in 2005, 5 years after he released his self-titled Ralph's World debut. Six albums in six years -- that's like one less than Peter Gabriel's done in almost thirty years. So, yes, he's prolific.

One could understand perhaps if Covert started repeating himself at this point, but this is his best album, full of great pop-rock songs. The album leads off with "Clap Your Hands," a rousing tune entirely different from the They Might Be Giants song of the same name, but with almost as few words and just as winning. As with many of his albums, Covert covers lots of stylistic ground (the klezmer of "Me & My Invisible Friend," the southern jangle-pop of "Old Red #7," the Ramones-lite punk of "I Don't Wanna," and, most bizarrely, the Elvis-meets-Moby sound of his cover of "Gitarzan"), but for whatever reason the forays no longer sound somewhat forced as they did on earlier albums.

Covert's lyrics have also improved over time. "What do you do when you need to / Hang your heart on something real / Remember what you're after?," he sings in "Hideaway," lines that would work in an "adult" song. "Liesl Echo," a slow, Beatlesque tune (and do you think the Beatles get royalties anybody even uses the phrase "Beatlesque"?) about a mountain girl and a shephered in love with her features the couplet "The shepherd left her / For greener pastures," a line which brings a wistful smile to my face every time I hear it.

Not every song is perfect -- "Tim The Boy" is an attempt to teach a lesson that ticks me off because it basically cribs the chord progression from "Red Banana," on the same album. ("I Don't Wanna" is a much more effective lesson-song, and more fun to boot.) But the hit-to-miss ratio is very high.

The album is best for kids age 4 through 9. Thanks to Covert's recent signing with Disney, the album has now been rereleased by Disney, which probably means you'll be able to buy it at your local Sip-N-Slurp in the near future. Highly recommended.

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."

Dan Zanes in DC

Devon links to an article on Dan Zanes in a New York state newspaper this past week. Devon's comments (and Zanes', too) are spot-on. In that article and in this one from the Fresno Bee (sorry, registration required), Zanes outlines his philosophy, such as it is, regarding the music he's recording, which he calls "all ages." In the Fresno Bee article, Zanes says:

"I think when people talk about kids' music or children's music — music that's really particular to the experience of kids learning to count or eat with a fork — that's good, but that's never what I was interested in... I was interested in music that was a shared experience, that kids and grown-ups can listen to.... It helps people with the idea that they can hang around the house and do their own songs."

Zanes is the main reason I subtitled this blog "Children and Family Music Reviews" rather than just "Children's Music Reviews." By removing most music revolving around notions of romantic love from the equation, Zanes sounds very retro, but also opens himself up to a broad spectrum of thematic and musical choices that can appeal to all family members simultaneously. I can enjoy songs about learning to count or reciting the alphabet, if they're done well, but Zanes' approach is complementary. (I also whole-heartedly endorse Zanes' notion that people should sing on their own more.)

So here is a press release from Americans for the Arts Arts Advocacy Day, at which Zanes performed. No word on whether "Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 Ragtime" will appear on Catch That Train!.