12 Good Songs for Children
a playlist from Looking at Picture Books
Here is a playlist of good children’s music on Spotify.
(Apple Music made it too hard for Looking at Picture Books to set up a profile and make playlists. C’mon Apple, it’s us!)
In last week’s discussion of rhythm, we touched on some formal similarities between picture books and music. There’s more to say on the subject, but that’s not really what this playlist is all about. These songs wouldn’t necessarily make good picture books, though some of them might (and one, “Pierre,” is an unabridged picture book text set to music by Carole King). My interest in these songs isn’t structural — rather, there’s a generosity and integrity to these songs that I recognize in my favorite picture books.
A song doesn’t have to be “for kids” in order for children to enjoy it. Music is unique among the arts in that so much of it is accessible and meaningful to listeners, regardless of age. And that’s cool! But this is playlist of straight-up children’s music, songs made for kids (with the possible exclusion of one song that we talked about for a long time and then decided qualified).
—MAC
I still have my vinyl record of Free to be You and Me
and I loved Really Rosie & the Nutshell kids so much I played them for my (Gen Z) kids, and like all great things they have not died! Some of my kids' friends had never heard of CHicken Soup with Rice until they came over to our house.
THanks for your entertaining & informative posts guys!
Oh man, all of those classic Sesame Street songs circa 70s and 80s, but especially “Doin’ the Pigeon, “I Love Trash,” “Would You Like to Buy an O” and the entire My Name Is Roosevelt Franklin album!
Another classic burned into my brain: Cat Stevens’
Teaser and the Firecat book/album