Sing! Sing! Sing!

[ailbhe]

We have some CDs of nursery rhymes, action rhymes, that sort of thing. About 5 CDs now, I think, all called "My First Action Songs CD" or similar. And they are all.

Sung.

By a manic depressive adult whose dog has just died, accompanied by a bunch of children who have been told to stand up straight, stop smiling, no giggling, and if you miss a note there's going to be trouble, Mavis, yes, I see you, you were going to have fun, weren't you, well we're not here to have fun, we're here to SING!

God. There has to be a better way. We have a CD of Swedish children singing Christmas songs which sounds like, you know, a bunch of kids singing - it's lovely. But it's all Christmassy and we don't know the actions. Are there any CDs out there with kids singing English or america action songs that sound like they're not at a funeral? Because "One finger on thumb keep moving" to the tune of Faure's "In Paradisum" would be amusing on Radio 4, but it's not great for boogying in the dining room with the baby.

Comments

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

We have a couple of PEEP CDs with tunes at the sort of speed you'd actually want to sing along with, but they're all sung by cheerful-in-Playschool-style adults, not by kids. Julia Donaldson's The Gruffalo Song Book CD is cheery and bouncy (again, only her singing), but the songs aren't immediately familiar (you're possibly a little young to remember Funny Face being sung on Playschool).

Sandra Boynton's Philadelphia Chickens and They Might Be Giants' Here Come The ABCs and No! are also just adults (there are kids on a couple of the ABCs tracks), but are at least very cheery and bouncy and sing-a-long-able. But I know of no CDs featuring children singing that don't sound like you describe (we have a truly scary version of All Things Bright And Beautiful from BBC Archives c.1950, which sounds like all the children in it are called Marjorie and Jeremy and stand very upright with smartly polished shoes while enunciating ev-er-y-syll-a-ble-pre-cise-ly).

[epi-lj.livejournal.com]

*giggle* Sorry, but :

"By a manic depressive adult whose dog has just died, accompanied by a bunch of children who have been told to stand up straight, stop smiling, no giggling, and if you miss a note there's going to be trouble, Mavis, yes, I see you, you were going to have fun, weren't you, well we're not here to have fun, we're here to SING!"

...just so sounded like something clawfoot would say in an exasperated voice. ;)

[thereyougothen.livejournal.com]

we're lucky that my mum and dad keep us in kids' CDs. the american or canadian ones seem to be full of people actually enjoying themselves! if you can get hold of the "wee sing" ones, they are our favourites