(I introduced the great American scholar, Leslie Fiedler, in Part I of these essays on children’s music.  My comments are informed by concepts introduced in a graduate course Leslie taught on children’s literature.)

To my ears, the songs are over produced, with unnecessary reverb on the voices, and borrowings from the middle-of-the-road orchestral Broadway styled arrangements.

But what make the songs great is that Sandy Tobias Offenheim so beautifully expresses funny nuances that only a kid would remember:

My six year old moldars are growing like boulders
At the very, very, very back of my mouth.*

And she depicts the craziness of ankle biters that is recognizable only to grownups who have to spend a lot of time with the little monsters:

The child sings, Mommy!  The Mommy says, Yes?  The child sings, Mommy!  The Mommy says, Yes? The child sings, Mommy!  The Mommy says, Yes?  The child says, I forgot.**

And she livens the songs with silly sound effects and makes great use of the voices of very talented child performers.

And this song touches on a heart rending and profound proclivity of the little ones:  “Talking to Myself.”

Talking to myself is so very good for me,
Can work out all my problems,
Plan a strategy.
I don’t have to use my manners,
And there’s no apology.
Talking to myself
Is very good for me.

When grown-ups see you talking to yourself
They say, “Who are you talking to?”
What they don’t seem to realize is that
I’m doing what I want to do.
Speaking to whom I wanna speak.
Saying what I wanna say.
No one gets hurt,
Don’t have to leave,
I can always stay**

In this song Offenheim is depicting what Leslie Fiedler described as one of the deepest dream needs of children: the need to be independent – on one’s own.  Leslie said the fantasy at the heart of all great American children’s literature is escaping from home.  How many children’s stories can you name that turn on the fantasy of an alternate family or of leaving the family?  They depict a world in which the child or child figure fends for him or herself without the interference of fathers and mothers and wicked sisters and stupid brothers.  The Odyssey, Robinson Crusoe, Gulliver’s Travels, The Cat in the Hat, Cinderella, Thumbelina, Lord of the Rings, The Paper Bag Princess, Where the Wild Things Are, and millions of other stories adopted by children all turn on leaving family behind.  They begin with the simplest act in the world – being abandoned or leaving home.  This allows the child to be who he or she really is, without interference.

Many children’s books – and the child’s private fantasies – permit the child to experience the deepest indignation they feel – the resentment about the failings of human institutions, the first and most disappointing of which, is the family.  Within the family, the child is helpless.  The child imagines a world in which she will have all the powers that others use to control her.  The power that the grownups exercise devour the child, cannibalize her spirit.

But there is also, associated with this indignation that children feel at their subjugation within the family, a subtext of unbearable heartbreak borne by parents.  Because parents, the ones upon whom the child should be able to rely for safety and nourishment and love, are as powerless against adversity as any child.  At some point, every parent betrays their pathetic ineffectual humanness to their children.  It is a fall from grace that every parent knows.

Think how much more agonizing it is for the parents in war-torn and impoverished communities who cannot find a way to feed, shelter, and protect their children.  So it was when the stories collected by the Brothers Grimm were first told.  Story tellers adapted their craft to make sense of the Seven Years War, the revolutions in Holland, France, and America, and many other rivalries and conflicts that directly involved, exploited, and annihilated civilian populations.  Sometimes parents cannot give children what they need the most, what they need to merely survive.  This helplessness and poverty often appears in fairy tales.  The parents, because of their feebleness, become the enemies of their own children.

One of the first illusions of each child is that someday you really grow up, reach peace, attain power, and have total control.  The first time a child sees their parent in a weak state is unbearably bitter.  This pushes the child toward independence, and explains the power they acquire from leaving the family behind, even if only for a short time.

So it is, that the child in this song sings:

Friends are very good to have
I’M the first one to agree.
But now, I just wanna talk to ME.**

* Sandy Tobias Offenheim, “My Six Year Old Moulders Feel Bigger Than Boulders,” Cee & Cee Music (CAPAC) (1977).  From Sandy Tobias Offenheim, Honey On Toast: More Songs of Sandy Tobias Offenheim, Berandol Records, BER 9021 (1977).  Album design – Mike Milicic; Photography – John To.

** Sandy Tobias Offenheim, “I Forgot,” Cee & Cee Music (CAPAC) (1977).  From Honey On Toast.

*** Sandy Tobias Offenheim, “Talking to Myself,” Cee & Cee Music, (CAPAC) (1977).  From Honey On Toast.

One of the best courses I ever took in all my many years of college was a graduate class on children’s literature by the legendary American scholar Leslie Fiedler.  What I learned from Leslie informs my interpretations of children’s music.

Leslie said that children’s literature – books written specifically for children – is a recent phenomenon.  Hans Brinker and the Silver Skates, published in 1865 was probably the first such book.  The same is true of children’s songs.  Much of what we now regard as classic children’s music, was never intended for children at the time it was created.

Fairy tales were originally not written for children at all.  Even the Mother Goose stories of Charles Perrault – author of “Cinderella” and “Little Red Riding Hood,” and inventor of the Fairy God Mother – were meant to be read by courtiers.  Unexpurgated fairy tales are often full of flagrant lust and blunt violence.  One of Leslie’s favorite fairy tales was “The Juniper Tree,” collected by the Brothers Grimm – a bewildering and mystical tale in which the wicked step mother serves her husband a stew made from the body of his beloved son.

Leslie said that practically every great 19th Century American novel has become a children’s classic:  Last of the Mohicans, Moby Dick, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Huckleberry Finn, Rip Van Winkle, the stories and poems of Edgar Allen Poe.  Similarly many great 19th Century British works have entered the children’s canon: Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, Gulliver’s Travels, Robinson Crusoe, and several of the books of Charles Dickens.  And novels of the 20th century like Gone With the Wind and Of Mice and Men have been taken in by children.  Leslie said Gone With the Wind is the greatest American book of the 1930’s, meaning it shuts down F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, John Dos Passos, Thornton Wilder, John Steinbeck, and Dr. Seuss.  Beginning at the age of nine, my daughter, Cadance, read Gone with the Wind over and over.  Most of the history of children’s literature is the appropriation of adult literature by kids.  In fact, one of the marks of great literature is whether or not it has been picked up by children.

This is certainly true of children’s music as well, as is demonstrated by many of the children’s songs I will discuss in the future.  But with contemporary, late 20th Century children’s music, I would suggest, there is also a reverse dynamic.  Nowadays, the mark of a great piece of music for children is that it is appreciated not only by the sprogs, but by the biddies as well.  So much children’s music is patronizing and panders to a misguided interpretation of a child’s interests.  Children know the world is not all bunnies and Magilla Gorillas and silliness.  When I was a yard ape, my favorite songs were “Sixteen Tons” by Tennessee Ernie Ford, “Purple People Eater” by Sheb Wooley, “A Guy is a Guy” by Doris Day, and everything and anything by Harry Belafonte.  None of this music was intended for children.  The one ostensibly childish song, “Purple People Eater,” concerns cannibalism, about which I will tell you much more, later.  Some of the best children’s tunes are old gospel songs.

The greatest children’s songs do not avoid romantic love, loneliness, poop and pee, spirituality, violence, and death.  And these subjects are prevalent in the ancient folk songs that have entered the children’s canon.  I am not suggesting that high production contemporary commercial kid’s music can’t be great.  Nor am I suggesting that a great children’s song cannot be grounded in calculated innocence.  The most polished songs in the Disney movies like, “You Can Fly,” “Zorro,” “Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo,” “Wringle Wrangle,” or “I’m Wishing,” and the guileless sweetness of Raffi, Dick Lourie, and Sandy Tobias Offenheim are as captivating to children as the wise, edgy, sparsely produced songs of Woody Guthrie, Ella Jenkins, or Leadbelly.  The greatness of all this music lies in the fact that it captivates the squirts and the coots and all the schlimazels in between.

Photo of Leslie Fiedler by Todd Goodrich.