MT Music Exchange: Songs for Our Children (by Sister Q)

It occurs to me that it’s been about a year since we did our CD exchange, and personally I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the music of my childhood. So I thought it would be kind of neat to see what songs we all associate with childhood–ours or our kids’.

Unlike previous exchanges, I propose that this time we just post track lists of hypothetical CDs. You can volunteer to press an actual CD for people who express interest if you want, but don’t feel obliged (and if you do, feel free to limit it to the first 3 people or whatever).

Personally, I’m going to post two lists: one list of lullabies/songs my mother used to sing me to sleep and that I plan to sing to my kids, and one of the upbeat, frequently noisy, road trip, running-around-the-house sort of songs that I also plan to subject my kids (and Expat) to.

Obviously there’s less urgency for a deadline without physical CDs, but let’s say we’ll try to post our lists by the end of May, and anyone who wants a CD should ask for it by mid-June. Sound good? Of course, people can always come later and add on! But those can be tentative dates for the initial exchange.

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33 thoughts on “MT Music Exchange: Songs for Our Children (by Sister Q)”

  1. I know we don’t do tip jars here, but I’m guessing I’m not the only one who only reads things that are marked as having “unread comments,” so here’s a new comment so people see this …

  2. We made a CD for DS1′s first birthday, and one for DS2′s second, of songs we’d sung to them (or in 2′s case, that he’d heard from being around 1). Of course I now can’t find the playlists, so these are approximate. DH was listening to a lot of Peter Mayer and Josh Joplin in 2003-2006!

    DS1′s:
    Holy Now, Peter Mayer
    Medley: How Many Hearts Have You Broken/Them There Eyes, Song of Atlanta Show Chorus (mine!)
    American Pie, Don McLean
    My Funny Valentine, Stan Getz
    Puttin’ On the Ritz, Fred Astaire
    Who Put the Bomp
    Surfer Bird
    Alphabet Song
    The Sound of Silence, Simon & Garfunkel
    Molly O’Malley’s, Peter Mayer
    The Birthday Party, Peter Mayer
    Yukon Sally, Peter Mayer
    To Make You Feel My Love, Billy Joel
    Tub Thumping, Chumbawamba
    Camera One, Josh Joplin
    Must Be You, Josh Joplin
    Siddharthas of Suburbia, Josh Joplin
    Danny Boy, Laura Nashman (flute)

    DS2′s:
    Down by the Riverside, Michael Penn
    Sunshine on My Shoulders, John Denver
    Ordinary Miracle, Sarah McLachlan
    Ladybugs’ Picnic (Sesame Street)
    There Goes My Heart, Song of Atlanta Show Chorus (yep, me again)
    Bridge over Troubled Water, Simon & Garfunkel
    Monkey, Josh Joplin
    World of Dreams, Peter Mayer
    Sister Golden Hair, America
    No Myth, Michael Penn
    Superman, Five for Fighting
    We Used to Be Friends (Theme from Veronica Mars), The Dandy Warhols
    Baby Mine, Max Q
    You’ve Got a Friend in Me, Max Q

  3. Lovely idea! Honestly, I rarely even remember to look at the diaries list — it just doesn’t fall within my sight line when I click on the page. I still wish there was a way to make it more prominent.

    I’ll have to think on this — we had some things I loved and some that the kids loved that I hated! I do still remember when my kids were 4, their favorite songs were Hallelujah Chorus [DD] and Let’s Groove Tonight by Earth Wind and Fire [DS].

    • oops — I meant to say, if you haven’t already, you might mention this diary in one of the open threads — people may be more likely to see it.

      • I put in a request to our tech guru to see if the Diaries can be moved to a more prominent place on the page. Maybe under “Unread comments” and above the Tags cloud :-)

  4. My kids loved the whole No! album by They Might be Giants. That is a must-listen IMHO.

    When he was really little (like 1-2) my DS1 loved “Baby Beluga” by Raffi.

    More recently, albums they have liked:
    End of the Century (Ramones)
    American Idiot (Green Day)
    Most of Parklife esp. Bank Holiday (Blur)
    It’s a Shame About Ray (Lemonheads)
    Third Eye (Redd Kross)
    “Come On” (song by the Panderers)
    “I Can’t Explain” (Who)
    “Blister in the Sun” (Violent Femmes)
    “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” and some other Beach Boys
    “Disco 2000″ (Pulp) … really that whole album is great, although most of it is totally raunchy, but a lot of that manages to go over their heads…

    Now they like their own stuff and don’t listen to what we play any more but those are some of the ones they really enjoyed that are “our” music.

  5. So — Two “kids” artists that DH and I were able to tolerate were the Sugar Beats [I think Carole King's daughter started this group] and John McCutcheon. I think we had 2 Sugar Beats CDs — Back to the Beat and Road Trip. Basically they are older pop songs sung by adults with kids doing background vocals. Car Wash, She Drives me Crazy, King of the Road, etc. As we are older parents, these songs were right up our alley (and from our era). Then John McCutcheon is a folk singer — not sure if he does stuff that is not for kids, but the CD we had was Howjadoo. Loved it, especially Cut the Cake and Babysitter. Then we made our kids listen to a lot of 70s music, particularly dance music (Commodores, Earth Wind and Fire, some disco) and Eagles and Queen — which worked for all 4 of us.

    When they were very small they loved Barney CDs [gifts] and we tolerated them as much as we could.

  7. We’ve had different playlists for the kids over the years. This is Harry’s current one:

    Are You Gonna Be My Girl Jet
    Are You Gonna Go My Way Lenny Kravitz
    Authority Song John Mellencamp
    Beautiful Girls Van Halen
    Bright Lights Matchbox Twenty
    Bubble Toes Jack Johnson
    Careful Guster
    The Catalyst Linkin Park
    Constellations Jack Johnson
    Dance the Night Away Van Halen
    Deer In the Headlights Owl City
    The Distance CAKE
    Drops Of Jupiter Train
    E-Pro Beck
    Fireflies Owl City
    Grenade Bruno Mars
    Hang On For Your Life Shooting Star
    How Far We’ve Come Matchbox Twenty
    I’m Gonna Reach John Gorka
    Jump Van Halen
    Last Chance Shooting Star
    One Tribe The Black Eyed Peas
    Ordinary Day Great Big Sea
    Perfectly Good Guitar John Hiatt
    R.O.C.K. in the U.S.A. John Mellencamp
    The Rest Of The Dream John Hiatt
    Runnin’ with the Devil Van Halen
    Silver Thunderbird Marc Cohn
    Tonight Shooting Star

  8. I like many of the versions of the songs on For the Kids. Putumayo has a whole collection of playground (animal, reggae, new orleans) albums which are cool. I like Dan Zanes alot. His are unadulterated versions which means my kids sing about grog and willy drowning in the deep sea but that doesn’t bother me. I also am fairly tolerant of “kiddie music” but don’t like Barney much so I found Disney’s Kids Greatest songs. They are sung by a guy name Larry Croce in a very unaffected way. He has a children’s chorus backing him up and they are also very simple. These are classic campfire songs, easy to sing and personally I love them but my DH hates them! He usually just puts on whatever he wants to listen to so lots of folky rock and jazz which is cool too. DS is starting to move past this stuff and I like fresh music so I am always looking sugestions. I 3rd or 4th BNL and TMBG also.

    • Oh yeah, Dan Zanes. I forgot about him but he is good for younger kids. Very tolerable for adults also. My DH saw him back when he was in the Del Fuegos a million years ago :)

  9. I like many of the versions of the songs on For the Kids. Putumayo has a whole collection of playground (animal, reggae, new orleans) albums which are cool. I like Dan Zanes alot. His are unadulterated versions which means my kids sing about grog and willy drowning in the deep sea but that doesn’t bother me. I also am fairly tolerant of “kiddie music” but don’t like Barney much so I found Disney’s Kids Greatest songs. They are sung by a guy name Larry Croce in a very unaffected way. He has a children’s chorus backing him up and they are also very simple. These are classic campfire songs, easy to sing and personally I love them but my DH hates them! He usually just puts on whatever he wants to listen to so lots of folky rock and jazz which is cool too. DS is starting to move past this stuff and I like fresh music so I am always looking sugestions. I 3rd or 4th BNL and TMBG also.

  10. We also like Laughing Pizza – they are a family that makes music your kids can dance to but with lyrics that aren’t horrifying. Basically, two music nerds got married, had a baby, and started writing songs when they realized their little girl was dancing and singing to inappropriate pop music.The girl’s now a teenager and a multitalented musician like her parents.

  11. I’m kind of a music idiot and actually don’t love it. But M is at this adorable dancing stage so I’m going to suck it up. Dear friends made her a CD for her birthday …. which is at home so I forget what’s on it. It is full of adorableness. I think I need to invite them over here……..

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