Children’s musicians Erin Lee and Marci bring us the next of their regular posts with thematic recommendations for kid-friendly music, plus activities to make the songs an interactive experience for the whole family.
Look for Erin Lee and Marci here on the first Monday of each month, or visit their homepage, www.gottaplay.org.
I’ve created links to Amazon for the full albums (click the album image or name), plus links to Amazon MP3 downloads, when available, for those who want only the singles. (Click the song name.) I also have a widget after the jump that will let you preview all three songs without leaving Mombian.
Over the last two years we’ve explored some serious issues in this blog. We’ve talked about peace, tolerance, creativity and loneliness. We’ve talked about the importance of speaking your mind and standing up for others. So this month, we are bringing you songs about a very important, universal issue: Hair. We’re talking Bedhead. We’re talking Truly Terrible Haircuts.
“Bedhead
Their name says it all — anybody who likes candy anything will like The Jimmies. They’re festive and fun, full of sugar, and their music frequently makes us nostalgic for early-80’s groups and roller-skating rinks. This tune’s narrator is suffering from a severe case of Bedhead, but she appears to be reveling in it. Sometimes when your hair looks that bad, the only thing to do is enjoy it. For all you moms out there that periodically lament not being able to listen to the punk groups you came of age with in front of your kids, this group is the answer. Go turn your back yard into a pint-sized mosh pit and pogo away with this fun group of musicians.
“Hair
Did any of you tune into the Tony Awards last month? As New Yorkers and former musical theatre performers, we sure did. One reason was to check out how Hair translated from Central Park to an indoor stage. As we watched the tribe of hippies take over the theatre singing the title song, we kept thinking “Who did we hear singing this tune recently? It was somewhere unexpected . . . it was someone unusual . . . it was . . . our six year old friend Alice!” So, we had to call her mother to find out why and how Alice knew every word to the theme from Hair. It turns out, it was featured on one of the Broadway Kids CD’s Back on Broadway. Show tunes, from the popular to obscure, are taken out of the context of their respective shows and are sung by a group of child performers. As Alice demonstrated, the best part of this CD is that it is pitched for young, developing voices to sing along to without straining or wandering off key. So go ahead, let your freak flag fly and sing along!
“The Haircut Song
Everyone in our band has done it. Everyone in our family has done it. We’ve all cut our own hair with truly terrible results. This is a cautionary tale — and it is the only tune we’ve sung that features both a mom and a dad — because as Marci pointed out “those are families too!” However, we don’t specify whether both parents are actually in the same household — we’ll leave that up to the listener’s imagination. Listen, enjoy . . . but don’t try this at home! [Ed. note: Erin Lee and Marci did change the lyrics to feature two dads when they sang this live on the R Family cruise that I took.]
Get this song off the iPod and into daily life — but by that, we do not mean cut your own hair as an activity to go with this tune! We mean do an art project (like this one from Hannah, age 3) of exceptionally awful haircuts!
However . . . if you happen to already be the proud owners of an awful haircut, try this: A family in California made their own music video to our song and completely blew us away! We never thought about making a video of “The Haircut Song” because we’re both still recovering from our own unfortunate 1980’s haircuts. But The Vines Family heard our song online and were brave enough to post pictures of themselves on YouTube in a glorious celebration of bad hair! Carrie Vines wrote us saying “When my daughter admitted to cutting her hair in an attempt to remove gum, your song became our anthem!”
Check out the stunning results by clicking here! We LOVE this! We are both calling the Junior Vines to schedule our hair appointments for 2017, when the “No Scissors Rule” is officially revoked.
Do you have videos, drawings or new lyrics to Erin Lee & Marci songs? If you do, let us know! We’ll post your work on our Web site.
Visit us at www.gottaplay.org and click on MORE FUN STUFF to see the pictures fans have sent us.