Our littlest guy Jacob is extraordinarily fond of learning through song and is happy to request or demand a song for pretty much any object or situation he encounters. Some of his requests are pretty easy to fill from the standard nursery rhyme and children song repertoire – “Frog song?” “Bus song?” “Lamb song?” (Though, admittedly, he did have to wait until the final word of “Hey Diddle Diddle” to get the payoff on his request for a “spoon song”.)
Others, though, are a little trickier –”Panda song?” “Umbrella song?” “Water truck with the pipes song?”
So we’re getting pretty good at improvising. But I was a bit surprised that I couldn’t call to mind any songs to fit the following requests:
- elephant,
- kite,
- big mountains,
- rocket.
Are there really not any or was I deprived of a crackingly good elephant song in my own childhood?
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March 14th, 2010 at 12:57 pm
How about “Five grey elephants balancing, step by step on a piece of string… ”
I can’t think of any for the others.
March 14th, 2010 at 12:58 pm
Well, there’s “Let’s go fly a kite” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g89NxTTycxc
March 14th, 2010 at 3:54 pm
the old classic ‘nelly the elephant packed her bags and went to join the circus……’
Elton john’s ‘rocket man’
there is a death metal band called ‘mountain goats’ they might have some choice songs about big mountains
March 14th, 2010 at 6:43 pm
“Hey-de-ho, hey-de-ho, the big old elephant is so slow”
And If I were a butterfly covers just about every animal
“the mountains are His, the valleys are His, the stars are His handiwork too…”
But surely improv is your best option – just choose a well known tune & bung in the appropriate word with something that rhymes
easy!
March 15th, 2010 at 2:34 pm
just about to tell you about hey di hey di ho but Liz beat us to it
Second one she mentioned is Colin Buchanan’s My God is so big!
Good to read your news in the Tear Mag and to read your Blog. Jean Ireland included you four in the prayers of the people – so we have not forgotten you!!!!
March 16th, 2010 at 3:51 pm
The bear went over the mountain?
I can hum the Playschool music for the rocket clock!
March 22nd, 2010 at 9:16 am
Does “The Grand Old Duke of York” constitute a song about a big mountain?
May 4th, 2010 at 10:09 am
“I’d like to be / under the sea / in an elephant’s garden / in the shade.”
It doesn’t scan very well, but it also allows you to educate about climate change in the subcontinent.
June 21st, 2010 at 5:00 am
Syd Barrett’s pyschedlic jungle anthem: ‘The Effervescing Elephant’.
An Effervescing Elephant
with tiny eyes and great big trunk
once whispered to the tiny ear
the ear of one inferior
that by next June he’d die, oh yeah!
because the tiger would roam
The little one said: “Oh my goodness I must stay at home!
and every time I hear a growl
I’ll know the tiger’s on the prowl
and I’ll be really safe, you know
the elephant he told me so.”
Everyone was nervy, oh yeah!
and the message was spread
to zebra, mongoose, and the dirty hippopotamus
who wallowed in the mud and chewed
his spicy hippo-plankton food
and tended to ignore the word
preferring to survey a herd
of stupid water bison, oh yeah!
And all the jungle took fright,
and ran around for all the day and the night
but all in vain, because, you see,
the tiger came and said: “Who me?!
You know, I wouldn’t hurt not one of you.
I’d much prefer something to chew
and you’re all to scant.” oh yeah!
He ate the Elephant
I think that does the job passably well.