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I need to expand my lexicon

Charlotte has started to have nightmares on and off.  Perfectly normal, and not something I'm worried about.  But when she has a really bad night like she is tonight, I'll go up and hold/rock her.  It's more for me than for her, honestly.  But I've discovered tonight that I need to learn a few more songs.  I've got "Personal Penguin" down cold because it's one of her favorite books.  After that she gets "A Monster's Lullaby," which is actually sweet and quite appropriate.  But after that I tend to segue into various things I've learned in the SCA and assorted Tom Lehrer.  If I send her off to school singing "Poisoning Pigeons in the Park," there's gonna be some 'splainin' to do...



Feb. 25th, 2011 03:34 pm (UTC)
I know when I see you write "SCA" in an entry that I'm not going to understand or know anything about anything written after it :)

Surely you know more kid songs, though. You Are My Sunshine, while nauseating, is easy to sing. Twinkle, Twinkle, too. Little Teapot. Eensy Weensy Spider. Greensleeves. I'm SURE you must know those :)
Feb. 25th, 2011 05:31 pm (UTC)

You're right - I do know those. Now, why don't I ever remember them when I'm frantically trying to come up with something? Instead I come up with "The Lusty Young Smith" - which admittedly has a good beat. Meg Davis' "Monster's Lullaby" really is quite cute and more up my alley than "You Are My Sunshine."

I'm just not a "cute" sort of person.
Feb. 25th, 2011 05:37 pm (UTC)
Songs for children ALL tend to be 'cute', so singing literal lullabies or any song for written for a child, you don't really get to choose what type of person you are...cute is just the default.

I'm not into cute either, and I think kid ditties are really insipid, but I can remember them and at least they're easy to sing. It doesn't matter what you sing anyway, as far as the soothing aspect goes...it's all about tone.

Unfortunately, children do tend to remember the most incriminating phrases better than anything else.
Mar. 4th, 2011 04:16 pm (UTC)
A few not-cute kids songs for the mental list.
"London Bridge is falling down..."
"London's burning"
"Alouette" (if you don't know French it's adorable...if you do, it's about someone plucking feathers off a bird to eat it.)
"Dona dona"
"Don't throw your junk in my back yard..."
"Clementine" (she's dead)
"My Bonnie lies over the ocean" (She's dead)
"You take the low road, I'll take the high road" (He's dead...I think you sense the theme)
"Teddy Bear's Picnic" (So okay it's cute but it has that super-creepy intro which is not.)

This got me thinking and I realized I do a lot of holiday themes. Right now we're doing 4th of July stuff - "This Land is Your Land" (including the no-trespassing verse), "America the Beautiful", etc.