Category Archives: Childrens

A Near Thing -29

So, i guess, kids music is crap. At best it’s an earworm of clapping and shouting, but it strikes me too often as condescending overexplanation. No wonder kids rebel younger every year. Like mini-Robespierres, they want their turn in the power chair telling even littler ones whassup.

So, the worst of kidsong sounds like… The Wiggles. This Australian ’90s sensation indoctrinated children to marshmallow versions of music genres, so they wouldn’t know jazz if it fell on them. Here “Wags, Stop Your Barking! It’s Almost Christmas Day!” (feat. Barry Williams) devalues rock below dadrock into Disney levels of showtune.

More traditionally pablumatic, Mr. Ray & The Little Sunshine Kids feature a sound Kim Jong Un would smile at: chorussed Christmas spirit with every voice fulfilling its joyful duty. “It’s Almost Christmas” is the formula, not that’s there anything right with that.

Retro fun comes with the exercise workout percussive workout from Hilary Henshaw “Christmas is Nearly Here.” Gather round all the ADHDs to drill. The unintentional irony helps.

Serious show tune gets me in the mood (except for how all the songs sound the same), so a moment for a well done Sesame Street melody from Elmo and Sheryl Crow “It’s Almost Christmas” (the title being basic the entire lyric for the singing).

What gets me up in the morning, though, is the rando existential playfulness of “Yell It Out! (It’s Almost Christmas).” The childishly affected mushmouthing, the jazzy improv tambourine, the wandering train of thought–that’s anticipation for the BIG Day! That’s what that is all right.

Mall World: cameo

We’ve been swarming to the box stores around late December for the sole purpose of seeing the big guy in red. But, i admit it, Santa might be somewhere at the other end of the promenade, or not even on duty. As they say, if you’ve seen one shopping center, you’ve seen a mall. So let’s celebrate the real estate.

One of my favorite parody bits is Joel Kopischke’s Green Day funny “Shopping Mall of Broken Dreams.” I encore it here with great joy.

Jerry Reed does his country comedy with “Christmas at the Mall.” Trouble is, he’s past his due date and this wheezing whopper is hard to bear.

A great whale of a jug band thumper (just a glimpse of St. Nick) is The Like of Jeff Pittman’s “Christmas at the Old Mall.” Jig by the J.C.Penny’s!

Where to observe the covenant of Christmas? Let’s meet at Toys R Us… or Old Navy! pop croon Girlfriend Material in “It’s All in the Mall.” Not a lot of holiday directly mentioned here, but what a party tune (and it’s on their album If Anyone Asks, Just Tell Them You’re Santa Claus).

Tom Chapin slaps around Wenceslas, Gilbert and Sullivan, Tchchaikovsky and with loads of French horns gallops about with “Bruno’s Christmas on the Mall.” It’s a kidsong epic adventure in child neglect and magical vandalism.

Mall World: unwilling

We’ve all seen that photo: the howling kid on Santa’s lap, another ruined (and expensive) photo from the mall.

Michael Gurley takes us there with his cute, comic kids’ song “I Ain’t Gonna Sit on Santa’s Lap.” Aww, he comes around after his tantrum!

Also, Lights

Christmas lights can be just one more thing on the to-do list for holiday atmosphere. No biggie.

The “Lights so Bright” in Paul Cartledge, Philip Jewson’s kidstune merely pave the way for Santa, angels, and presents. It’s a warning sign, not a symptom.

Marcy Tigner’s aw shucks Shirley Temple approach to “Colored Christmas Lights” makes me worried she’s singing about a segregated neighborhood. But her eyes are full of all these things, including holiday sparklies. Kidsong of bygone days.

Cod Sent Flute sums up the randomness of the season with the quiet garage poem “Christmas Lights.” Those lights are there, perhaps, to show us Jesus.

The usual complaint about sunny California Christmas puts “The Lights and Buzz” into their proper pigeonholes by Jack’s Mannequin. Incidental alt, with a message.

First Lights

Fiat Lux may be confused for God himself. Among first lines of books, it’s a lovely enigma and can be taken many ways. But Christmas is so dark, lights are called for. The birth of Mr. Christ might call for the lights.

One of the well known lights are carried by a couple French girls to announce the Nativity to the town (don’t tell Herod!). “Bring a Torch, Jeanette, Isabella” is a fair tune of some centuries’ standing, and probably does better in the French with lyrics. I enjoy Sufjan Stevens‘s whispered telephone call, as well as LA’s Carnival Art’s early ’90s rollicking populist near-punk (which seems about right, even with the Whoville bit at the end).

“The Four Lights of Advent” is a light, airy kids’ instructional tune from Mary Thienes Schunemann about the ancient Xmas celebration of flaming on the Sundays leading up to 12/25. Candles are fun!

Star Questions

Can’t miss that titanic twinkler in the East. Seems important. What’s it all mean?

Where’d she go? lonesome David Pomeranz wants to know from the “Christmas Star.” Pop music knows know boundaries.

Doubters gonna wonder. Paul Baloche goes country ballad with “Follow That Star,” but he has some posers before he takes it on faith. And gets the ultimate answer (which is the star).

Peggy Watson has the shepherds ask the “Star of Wonder” what to do with an uplifting pop folk round table. (That’s so good, i’ll listen to Sweet, Hot, & Sassy! sing it, too!)

Kidsongs love to ask the questions, because that’s how proselytizers trick ’em! (And because that’s basic human development.)

Starshine Singers point out “There’s a Star in the Sky” with their timpani. Where does? Who knows? Let’s find out! It’s a real puzzle.

Kidzone goes haunting alto with “There is a Star in the Sky.” Tell me, what can it mean? Then the answers come aplenty. So, presents. And glory.

Star Showing

You know what the Christmas Star is for! Showing, not telling.

Ash strolls over a lava field in his snow suit rocking out how “There’s a Star” in the night sky which brings hope and other dreams of a new age.

Here, here, here says “The Christmas Star” from the Wiggles. So short, it’s not any genre at all.

Golden Apples sweetly (shrilly) tells us how the “Pretty Little Twinkling Star” shows us where Jesus lies. Glistening, streaming, it seems quite fluid. Insistent kidsong.

Twinkling Star

That interfering atmosphere above us makes the job of a star seem intermittent. The godstar of 0 A.D. may have blazed on the cnadle of the cake of the world, but for us it twinkled.

Well, the kids get it. “Twinkle, Twinkle, Christmas Star” bastardizes the nursery rhyme yet aggrandizes it as well. Sheila Wilson may have stumbled upon the greatest Sunday School earworm ever. Better than the other kidsong versions.)

Love Bells

Christmas is love. Christmas is bells. What to do when you feel close at the holidays…

Well, okay, there’s love for all and JC and children and maybe the beasts and bugs and whatnot. The Steeles ring “The Bells” with R+B gospel for Love. It’s like climaxing, but more appropriate for church.

Definitely not religious, Erasure rings the “Bells of Love (Isabelle’s of Love).” It’s barely even about the holidays it’s so heart-eyed.

The Drifters tell us that “The Bells of St. Mary’s” ring out for you and me. This is doo wop you can make moves/movies to.

Peter Dunne’s “Ring Out the Bells” is a grinder of seduction that invokes the child is born as a sign We Were Made for Love. Raunchy pop. Too much?

The Infini-teens say “Ring a Bell” for a loved one. This soft pop is so close to kidsong that i can’t even fault it with a PG. Handholding sweetness.

Just Bells

Bells at Christmastime might just be one more prop what fell out the box from the attic when you upended that tangle of merry morass.

A supernumerary, the bell adds to the list in Patti Page’s “Christmas Bells.” (This is an older version.) Scmaltzy romantic pop fun. Byron Lee & The Dragonaires & Friends‘ duet underlines the hey-you-doin’.

“And the Bells Rang” let’s you know where bells rate… last. The Golddiggers tip pop into easy listening so nobody younger than thirty will like this, unless they’re buttering up gramma. (This was a year before Bing’s release.) (But a few years after Tex Beneke, Ray Eberle & The Modernaires With Paula Kelly.)

Little Rita Faye cornpones the ham with “Sleigh Bells, Reindeer, and Snow.” It’s a list, read it.

Shad Weathersby adds bells to every aspect of Christmas with “Swingle Jingle.” For kidsong, it kinda does swing.