Customer Reviews

American Folk Game & Activity Songs for Children

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
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1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is an album with many songs, that's true, and my child loves it! She asks for it by "Pete Seeger music" and we sing most of her favorites together such as "I know a little girl".
Countless hours of good music that I don't mind playing and playing again. It has a booklet with the songs and explanations that help to understand a past that we've forgotten or didn't know.

This disk is a delight for children as well the young at heart. The songs are fun and singable. The acompanying booklet contains the words to every song, so that you can sing along. The booklet also includes motions and/or other activities to go along with a few of the songs. This disk is a great way to introduce young children to the wonderful heritage of American folk music. Adults will enjoy it as well.

I never thought I'd be less than enthuiastic about something from Pete Seeger ... but it wasn't necessarily a brillant idea to merge two LP's on a single CD. If you listen straight through, the songs will start blurring together - too much of the same good thing.

However, if you select several tracks - any tracks, they may be your whim of the day - you will find the normal excellent performance of Pete Seeger - and an excellent selection of folk music. For example, his "Jim Crack Corn" (many of us learned it as "Jimmy Crack Corn") is a varient with enough difference in the musical rhythm that anyone would note the difference ... a step towards showing children that folk music doesn't have a "right text". And pieces perhaps too well known to children when this material was record, e.g. Here We Go 'Round the Mulburry Bush, get melded into medleys ... again showing that folk music is already known without wasting a lot of precious LP space on it.

Having bought, enjoyed and reviewed Birds, Beasts, Bugs & Fishes Little & Big: Animal Folk Songs, I later followed up with this twofer. While I slightly prefer the earlier set, there's really not a lot to choose between them.

Pete Seeger clearly feels guilty about recording some of the songs with lyrics that are definitely not politically correct these days. He cites two tracks in particular, the first being the opening track, Bought me a cat. He does not elaborate on this one, but I assume he was referring to the last two verses about buying a baby and a woman. The other track, Pig in the parlour, comes with an explanation. It seems that origin of the Irish pig in the song is unknown, and might be completely harmless ; then again, it could be very offensive. With its true origins lost, people will interpret it however they choose. However, I have come across openly racist songs from the thirties that are worse than any interpretation you can put on this song. Obviously, no such songs stand the test of time well, but I prefer to see them as being of their time, and therefore providing a historical reminder of how things used to be. We sometimes look on the past through a rose-tinted perspective, but historical songs remind us that bad things happened too. So while I don't condone the lyrics of these songs, I accept them as a reminder of how far society has come since these songs reflected reality. We have progressed since then.

Actually, the tune to Pig in the parlour sounds familiar, though I don't recognize the lyrics from elsewhere. More familiar to me are Jim crack corn, This old man (complete with Knock knack paddy whack chorus line), Frog went a-courting, She'll be coming round the mountain, Skip to my Lou, Yankee doodle and the three songs that make up the medley of Ring a ring a roses / Here we go round the mulberry bush / London bridge. I suspect I've also heard some of the others but perhaps, like Pig in the parlour, not necessarily with the same lyrics.

The booklet comes with complete lyrics as sung, together with dance instructions for some of them including Pig in the parlour. In the dance, everybody takes turns at being a pig, which tends to suggest that the origin of the lyrics have an innocent meaning.

If you are considering buying this for children, remember that there are 20 tracks (listed as 22 by counting the medley as 3 instead of 1), so if if you feel the need to omit a couple of songs, there's still plenty to amuse. Personally, I don't think anything here is as controversial as the inclusion of Old Shep on The Johnny Cash Children's Album, but you might disagree. I regard this as another classic set of children's music.

This was a good transaction. The CD was received in good time and we are enjoying it.

Great. I was after an old record from 1955, here it is plus a second part that has not the same quality.