Customer Reviews

Birds, Beasts, Bugs & Fishes Little & Big: Animal Folk Songs

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I bought this CD because I liked the title and we listen to it everyday because we love the style and songs. This CD covers all ages, has a nice bluegrass feel and you can replay it a million times and not want to scream after the third time. The songs are more like stories set to music and our child loves #2. Enjoy.

My daughter, who is now a mother, grew up with Pete Seeger and loved his way with children. Many of the songs are very "singable" for even young children. The music had a calming effect and was played over and over. I am now ordering for my granddaughter because our old record has been loved so much it has gotten shabby.

For me, this is pure nostalgia - it brings back memories of the fifties. It seems from reading other reviews that today's young children get as much pleasure from this music as those of my generation did, although I can't imagine anybody recording music this way now.

I don't remember all the songs, but I recognise several of them. I know an old lady is immediately recognisable from the title, but I recognised others immediately upon hearing them again, including The keeper and the doe - it has the (for me) immortal chorus lines

hey down hoe down derry derry down
among the leaves so green-o.

Of course, in the age we now live, some of these songs are not politically correct and some may not appeal to vegetarians, but I don't ever remember hearing much about vegetarians until the eighties. Before then, there were very few of them around. I don't mind such people, but Pete could hardly have been expected to consider them when these songs were recorded.

I read another review where somebody complained about Pete's imitations of animal noises. I'm sure that a modern recording of such songs would use authentic animal noises, but again, this music must be seen as a product of its time.

So, this is a fun album, not to be taken too seriously, which can be enjoyed by young children, or by adults trying to remember when they were young children themselves.

I was just introduced to this music in a playgroup for 6-12 month olds. They were all babbling and playing away when we turned on "I had a rooster". Within seconds the babies were completely silent and looking towards the direction of the music completely entralled! Some of them even started bouncing to it! A huge hit! I immediately came home and ordered a copy.

I borrowed this from the library 5+ times for my children. I decided I just had to have it.

My parents borrowed this record from the library and recorded it to casette to listen to on our first long car trip.I was probably four years old. It quickly became a family favorite. Somewhere a long the way the tape was lost. Two decades had passed when just the other day I happend to catch a snippet of Froggie Went A Courtin on a public radio station. All of those memories came flooding back. Now I am buying it for my own children. I don't know what speaks more powerfully for this album than that.

Pete Seeger is, to my mind, one of the first musicians who really speaks to children, not in a condescending way, not in a repressive, angry way, not in a sugary I'd-like-to-make-money-off-you way. Seeger may have been forced into children's music because of McCarthyism, but he definitely took it as an opportunity to show children that they were fully deserving of his, and everyone else's, attention.

There is no way that a parent can ever go wrong by playing Pete Seeger's music...that is, if that parent wants to have a self-determined, happy child, and if that parent is committed to playing music that models self-determination, community, and engagement.

And, for the sake of the rest of us, it would help if parents sang these whenever they played them. So that, in the years to come, the songs did not die out as an interesting, but powerless detour on the road towards dis-integration. Sing, sing a song. Make it simple. To last your whole life long.

This CD provides a wonderful collection of folk songs that even very young children will love. Pete Seeger is a masterful story teller. Words are included so you can sing along. Even new songs will soon become old favorites.

I think most would agree with me: most children's CDs are irritating to adults. Not this one. The whole family loves and laughs at these songs. Pete Seeger is peerless and his voice and playing are perfect for these humorous songs. I especially love the "little bird fly through my window" song with its quick-changing rhythms (9/8 then back to 4/4 I think) and "buy molasses candy" apropos of nothing. The top 4 CDs for a toddler are (in no particular order): this one, Peter Paul & Mommy (not the "live" one but the studio one), "Good Night" (visualization stories) by Jim Weiss, and (a little less appealing to adults but toddlers love it) Best of Elmo.

As a child growing up in New York City I sat on the deck of Pete Seeger's boat "The Clearwater" and listened to him sing and play banjo to us (city kids). The memories of those sumer days and that wonderful music is still strong for me more than 30 years later. When I purchased this CD for my seven month old son two weeks ago I was curious to see if I would enjoy the music as much now as I did as a child. Happily my son LOVES this CD, and so do my husband and I. The songs are playful and melodic in a way that most children's music these days can't quite pull off. I recommend this CD highly for the whole family.