VEGANGELICA

Cute image: power-sliding out of the womb!

Thanks for answering my question. See, this supports my hypothesis that most kids need to be younger than five to really appreciate children's music. (When my child was under 5, I actively avoided the Teletubbies and Barney on TV because I didn't want him to become a fan such that I'd have to listen to them!)

So *now* I'm curious what sort of music you did hear before age five and if you can draw any correlation between those musical experiences and your current appreciation of '80s pop?

(BTW, my parents forbid me from watching TV for a year when I was around 10. They had good intentions, but I ended up just hanging out at the mall to watch the TVs at Sears!)

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Perhaps we should say that you caught the Beatle beetle from your Mom, Liz.

I *do* like "The Please and Thank You" song more than Barney's "I Love You" song. The two things that I, as an adult, don't like about Barney's songs are (1) his voice and (2) the didactic nature of some of the songs. For example, with the "Please and Thank You" song, although I agree it is nice that children learn about the reasons for being polite, I have almost never *told* my child to say please or thank you. Instead, I assumed he'd learn about please and thank you by observing me as I was saying them. I guessed (correctly) that he would figure out for himself why I am saying please and thank you, just like kids figure out the meanings of hundreds of other words without being taught them or when to use them.

Thinking back again to when I was little (under 5), I remember liking the song, "If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands," and I loved Brahm's "Lullaby and Goodnight."

Also, my mom used to amuse me by singing the song, "Do your ears hang low," and I have fun memories of singing this song with her and making up our own verses using our different body parts ( Do Your Ears Hang Low? - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia ). My mom sang many songs to me when I was little: children's songs, folk songs, and songs that were popular when *she* was a child back in the '40s (think, "Yes, We Have No Bananas.")

When my child was a baby, I sang him lullabies, hoping he'd have nice memories of songs and music like I did from my childhood. Now he says he always hated those songs when I sang to him! (I think he didn't mind them when he was a baby, though.)

Below is one of my favorite lullabies that I sang to my child until he was around 4, by which time he started to dislike it. I must say that my child never seemed to gravitate toward children's songs, which is too bad (for me!) because I kept wanting to sing to him! He's almost 10 now and loves electronic dance pop music.

"The Moment I Saw You" by Nicolette Larson and Graham Nash
from Larson's album "Sleep Baby Sleep" that someone gave me as a baby gift:


Lullaby: The Moment I Saw You - Nicolette Larson/Graham Nash - YouTube

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Here's some Kermit disco for you, Howard, and for Liz: another contender for...The Muppet Wars!!!!!!!!!

Kermit - "Disco Frog"
Enjoy those floppy little frog legs as Kermit goes wild on the dance bog floor!

EDIT: I just asked my child what he thinks of this song, and he authorized me to quote him here on MusicBanter. He said, and I quote: "This sounds like Frankenstein. This sounds like ****. This sounds like a walking talking pile of ****! I don't hate Kermit, but this sounds annoying. This sounds like a zombie is singing it. LOL."


Sesame Street: Kermit Sings Disco Frog - YouTube

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ribbons

Erica, I have to catch up on this thread but just want to tell you: Your son is like a mini-Lester Bangs there with his comments. He is frank and to the point! Following your lead, I solicited my 8-going-on-9 year old son's comments earlier tonight on Kermit's "Disco Frog" and here's what he said:

"I don’t know, Ma…this is for little kids…what am I supposed to say? (Me: Say anything you want.) Little kids like Kermit, it’s OK, it’s supposed to be stupid. The ghost frog dances around too fast, he doesn’t go with the beat. But he’s supposed to be a crazy ghost frog. The ladies are funny with their hair. They have the same tongue as Kermit. The jungle was cool. Did you see the little lights in the trees? (Me: I think those were fireflies. What about the song?) I don’t like it, it’s not a good Sesame Street song. But little kids – like, kids in preschool, they will like Kermit singing it and the scene. What were the tan plants at the beginning? (Me: I think they were reeds.) Yeah, they'll like that."

My son, lover of tan plants and firefly lights.

Howard the Duck

thanks, I enjoyed that

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Malaise is THE dominant human predilection.

Engine

Pac Man Fever by Buckner and Garcia was my favorite (and only) album when I was 6.
My parents bought it for me because they knew I was into Atari 2600. I suppose that it influenced my lasting musical taste.





They also bought me the West Street Mob self-titled album presumably because my mom was a disco fan and she figured that since I hated the competitive sports that they tried to get me into, I might enjoy breakdancing. I can't deny that this music had a lasting effect on me. This song is hardwired into some part of my brain.

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Like an arrow,
I was only passing through.

ribbons

You hit the nail on the head, Erica, with the threshold being age 5-6; that’s when the “real school” of kindergarten and peer pressure comes into play. My children also started disliking children’s songs around that age. I get the feeling that my children were not as precocious as your son was at that age, though – so their progression with music was not so much the result of critical thinking as it was just going with the flow along with their peers. Around that stage, I also noticed that my kids started to “tease” me with rolling eyes whenever I sang those children’s songs. I had always made up these short impromptu songs that I would sing to them -- in place of talking a lot of the time -- in a half-singing half-talking voice. That was and is sort of my trademark with them! I do it to this day, and still get the rolling eyes! They refer to those songs as “Mom’s Greatest Hits”.

ribbons

I loved West Street Mob and Sugar Hill Gang, too. Great records!

My son does play soccer (mainly because he enjoys doing things with his legs!), but he's not a sports nut. He is a member of a boys' breakdance troupe at school and they perform at school shows. So he does like some light hop-hop. They also incorporate some hard rock songs into their routines. He also loves Led Zeppelin, Kaiser Chiefs, The Ramones, Queen, Paramore (sister influence!), The Beach Boys (victory for me!), Magic Kids (another sister influence), and The Beatles (ultimate victory for me!).

sopsych

Thanks for the research information, VEGANGELICA.

I do think I get the point of children's music - it's mostly to soothe and distract children. I personally don't think it would have worked on little me, or maybe it was tried and failed. Apparently I was very colicky. Plus, I'm very sensitive to voice quality, so I don't want a mediocre voice in my presence. That's one area where most prerecorded children's music excels - Bob Dylan won't be making children's songs anytime soon

jhjhj

I'm 'way older than most of you. When I was a child, I listened to the Little Golden Records that were 78rpm. The only really children's song I can remember had the words "I dropped my head/candy," but what I remember the most was a set of Sousa marches I listened to over and over and over. I loved Sousa as a child.

Wisdom, I suppose you would not have liked Dylan's version of "Froggie Went A-Courtin'."

VEGANGELICA

Yes, my son is very frank!

And yours gave such a cute analysis of Kermit's "Disco Frog!" I was especially amused that he said, "The ghost frog dances around too fast, he doesn't go with the beat" and "the ladies are funny with their hair." I like how he analyses the song from the perspective of little kids and in such detail. (Like your son, I didn't realize the little lights were supposed to be fireflies, either. I also thought they were pretty, and I liked the "tan" reeds and the way they screened the action at the end of the video.)

Your son's comments are a great example of how an 8-year-old distinguishes himself from "little kids." My child claims he will not even associate with "young" children of 6 anymore, which always amuses me, because to me *he* is still young (and he makes exceptions for the 6-year-olds who are "cool").

I'd like to hear these "Mom's Greatest Hits," Liz. Just wait until your kids become parents (if they do become parents): they'll probably be warbling little songs, too.

Yes, I've observed that the peer pressure is huge beginning in 1st grade, and preferences for particular songs/clothes rush through my child's class like wildfire. I think he knew of Katy Perry's "Hot n' Cold" song before I did, because many of the elementary school kids were singing it!

I think the peer pressure in elementary school results partly from fear of being teased if one isn't like the others, but mostly from a huge urge to "belong" and "be the same as" and be "cool," where "cool" means what teenagers or admired peers do. Anything "baby-like" is viewed with disdain, including the songs. Children's songs are repulsive to my child. They drive him wild. He likes tough, aggressive songs and no sing-songy voices.

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I'm glad you liked the Disco Frog!

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You're welcome. Children's songs interest me because their structure reflects not only what children usually can handle mentally or prefer emotionally from a developmental standpoint, but also what adults who make up the songs *think* children may like based on interacting with kids (or other adults, whom they copy) or *want* children to like.

I don't know how much you've been around babies, but if you talk in "baby talk" (use lots of inflection and raise your voice), they really *do* perk up and pay more attention to you. And they seem to like repetition much more than older people do. Probably the knowledge-hungry brains of very little children gravitate toward repetition because it is meaningful order in the chaos of sensory input, and the repetition cements what is learned.

I would expect most songs for children under 5, who are voraciously learning language, to be sing-songy and highly repetitive just like the song below, because such songs cater to their developmental stage. An article about international children's songs does say that children's songs globally often have short phrases and much repetition, although there are also many dissimilarities ("Discovering musical characteristics of children's songs from various parts of the world" by Shih-Yu Jade Pai (2009)).

Did anyone do the pat-a-cake song/game with little you? Even a colicky baby might like that!

Pat-a-cake song
This video shows a baby being socialized and amused by the adults teaching the song and singing it twice


Pat-a-Cake, pat-a-cake, baker's man - YouTube

^ The simplicity of such children's songs is beneath the level of communication of which most 1st graders are capable, so I think it makes sense that most 6 or 7 year olds would not gravitate toward (little) children's songs. A good example of this is Barney & Friends, which (according to Wikipedia) was designed for children age 1 - 8. (I always was surprised to see the older kids on the shows, because I expected an 8-year-old to be snorting disdainfully at the songs rather than singing along.)

Beyond just the musical characteristics of children's songs, I'm also interested in their subject matter. I've noticed (as probably everyone has) that many children's songs deal with animals, showing them in whimsical, anthropomorphic ways. (Ducktales is a great example.) To me this reflects a catering to children's innate fascination with other animals (moving beings), and also reflects a desire of adults to create a fictitious world in which people get along with other animals (rather than ignore, hurt, kill, eat them, etc.).

The subject matter of children's songs seems to show a desire among adults for a better, safer, kinder world than it really is in which humans and the rest of nature get along. Many of my favorite children's songs (when I was a child) involved animals: "The Inchworm Song," "Puff the Magic Dragon," "Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree," "Old MacDonald Had A Farm."

After age 7 or 8, kids' maturity is much more adult-like, and so it makes sense to me that children's songs no longer appeal to them very much. You may have just gone through the developmental stages of early childhood very fast, such that children's songs didn't appeal to you by the time you remember hearing them (after age 5)! Did you by any chance learn to read before age 3 or 4?

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There's also Bob Dylan's "This Old Man."


This old man Children's Song Bob Dylan - YouTube

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sopsych

So that's what the song is called. His voice seems to work for the subject matter.

I think the original reason I didn't like singing around me was fear of the people doing it.

I always thought "Pat-a-cake" was "Patty cake." I think it was used in my family. It's okay, but I think of it as more a game than a song.

Probably I learned to read early. I was well ahead by first grade. That's an interesting possible connection between reading and music.

Not impartial