My five-year-old daughter has asked me to burn her a CD with her favorite songs (over and over) on it. Her absolute favorite is Puff the Magic Dragon, no surprise. She also wants We Are the Dinosaurs, no surprise. The next is a little surprising, A Trick of the Tail by Genesis. It’s a song about a guy, probably a satyr, who goes out to see the world and is captured by people. He’s surprised they have no horns or tails. The last is an absolute shocker, though. It’s a song called Rosemary’s Sister, written by Huw Williams and sung (on our CD) by Connie Dover. It’s a breathtakingly beautiful and extremely sad song. Lyrics below; unfortunately Connie’s website doesn’t have a clip. There may be one at Amazon or CDBaby. Anyone have some similar stories of the very young falling in love with songs way out of their age range?
Brother of disaster and sister of our fate
Do you count the tragedies we see?
And brother of confusion and sister of debate
Do you remember the sister of Rosemary?
The doodlebugs were flying and the blitz was at its height
Rosemary lay sleeping with her sister only nine
And no one heard the one that hit, the one that blew the lid
Rosemary came out crying but her sister never did
Chorus
And we fly high, our dreams are all in vain
One moment we are singing and the next we cry in pain
But high above the heavens in a host of angels’ wings
Rosemary’s sister will be dancing
Her mother cried all that year as many others did
There were times when she’d pull through now and again
And the people there in Bethnel Street in the rubble and the stone
Swept up the street and started all again
When tyranny is biting you do your best to try
And stifle all your heartache till it’s safe again to cry
And when the darkness disappears and the light comes shining through
We’ll gather up and start our fall anew
There’s a teacher in the classroom, there’s a mother in the hall
The children sit and wait for the bell for home
And Rosemary is waiting, she has a child now of her own
And she’s waiting to collect and take her home
And sometimes in the firelight in the silence where she sits
Her mind goes back to Bethnel Street, the darkness and the blitz
And she hears if there’s another one, then the end will be complete,
Well, I wonder what they’d say in the Bethnel Street
I know a young woman. Zoe Mace, who likes to sing opera and has become a local celebrity in Oxford, England. Those that know her, say she is an old soul, that she never really liked little girl stuff, that an early age wanted to do more adult things. How many nine year old (now 11) girls do you know that want to sing opera? The parents are not “stage” parents, Zoe chose her genre on her own.
The curious can read more about Zoe’s story at her website: http://www.zoemace.co.uk/
No clips, that I could find at a glance.
Interesting. I’m often surprised at how little kids respond to sad songs, especially ones that tell stories. My 6th graders absolutely love singing “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,” and kids of all ages really seem to enjoy “Buckeye Jim,” a sad/goofy/surreal old American ballad. “Old Blue” and “Silas,” two very touching dog songs, are also popular.
Of course, most kids want to laugh most of the time, but I believe that since they experience sadness, they want a way to express it sometimes. You can’t be goofy ALL the time, afterall. Sad songs and stories give them a healthy but realistic way of looking at the world.
The BEST, though, was last spring when I had a whole gym full of elementary kids (around 150 of them) belting out Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds,” complete with six of them on Sweettone whistles playing the little coutermelody on the chorus! The kids ROCKED on that song, and man did the parents love it!
ah - my kids have been permanently warped from birth. Forced to go to folk and dulcimer and Renaissance and Celtic and Appalachian festivals.
When Nate was about, oh, 2 or 3 years old, he used to walk around the yard belting our “Wild Thing”. Noah’s favorite singer for years was Mike Cross and / or the Juggernaut Jug Band. They’ve seen Si Kahn, Tom Paxton, John McCutcheon, Tom Chapin (who brought Noah up on stage to do the “Circle Song” with him).
Neither of them have any tolerance for rap. Nate (at age 19) likes 70’s rock and old school country. Noah (at age 15) likes folk, classical and show tunes (he’s been in “The King and I”, “Carousel” and is starting practice for “Oklahoma”).
Probably the funniest thing that’s occurred was Noah - at age 8 - going into school and signing up for the talent show, telling them he was going to perform on an “ancient, Appalachian instrument”. He played “Whiskey 'Fore Breakfast” on the nose flute!!! His older brother disowned him then.
