New (free) (e)Books: Yellow Submarine

Like so many people my age, I was raised on the Beatles—I think I took either my mother or father's copy of Magical Mystery Tour to my preschool show-and-tell once. (What precisely I said about it is, rather fortunately, lost to my memory.)

But while the Fab Four's music had become a fairly natural background to my own early parenting years as well, I hadn't given the animated film Yellow Submarine a lot of thought. (I seem to recall that my snobbish elementary-school self largely dismissed the movie after my first viewing, upon realizing that the real Beatles hadn't done their own voices.)

Until, that is, a trip to London when our oldest was three, and happened to be obsessed with "All You Need Is Love"—having run through the picture books we had brought with us, we grabbed an edition of the book version of Yellow Submarine, which features all the colorful Heinz Edelmann graphics of the film, if none of the actual music. It was a huge hit with Dash, and has been a favorite book of his and his younger brother's ever since.

And now, I discover, iTunes is offering an iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch edition of Yellow Submarine—completely free of charge! (OK, the iPad's not free by any means, I grant you.) It makes smart, efficient use of the opportunities for interactivity—at a touch, the butterflies flutter, the Blue Meanies laugh evilly, and the Beatles themselves pop up and down in the Sea of Holes. Plus, there's a whole slew of video clips from the movie on just about every page, which means that in this edition, you do get some of the original songs. (Naturally, there's a page at the end where you can buy any or all of them on iTunes.)

Maybe it's just the relative newness, still, of interactive books on tablets, but when I unveiled this surprise for Dash and Griff, they were mesmerized and delighted (and—fair warning—wouldn't let me have my iPad back). Kinda wishing now that I'd saved it as a (free!) Christmas present...

[Image © Apple Corps Ltd., courtesy of PR Newswire]

New Music: Wanna Play?

Today's children's music is more and more geared toward a sound that both adults and kids will enjoy. And with an ever-increasing number of established adult musicians delving into the kid genre (from They Might Be Giants to Barenaked Ladies to The Verve Pipe), it was probably just a matter of time until someone recorded the first "accidental" crossover.

California duo Sunshine Collective may get the honor with their first full-length album—and not just because its title, Wanna Play?, would fit in nicely among the Justin Roberts and Frances England CDs. The 12 tracks of sunny pop music weren't recorded specifically for kids, and wouldn't feel out of place on any playlist of modern-pop singer-songwriters. But the crossover appeal of the second track, "I Just Wanna Play," got it some play on family-music radio this year—which led to the discovery that the entire album is not only accessible to kids, but enthralls them. (My two sons, especially the six-year-old, now insist on hearing it over and over.)

That's in some part because, not having been aimed at children particularly in the first place, Sunshine Collective’s songs don't pander to them in the slightest, and kids always appreciate that. But it's mostly because Stephanie Richards and Brian Arbuckle have a knack for writing upbeat, catchy songs that you’re happy not to be able to get out of your head, from "LA (Beautiful Day)"—which sounds like the pop song Bob Mould never wrote for Katrina and the Waves—to the Indigo Girls-esque "This Day” and the jaunty, Django Reinhardt/Stephane Grappelli-tinged “Love Makes Life So Sweet.”

And even though these are songs written for adults, the happy themes keep anything objectionable out of the lyrics—even the playful innuendo in "Love Makes Life So Sweet" is more innocent then what you hear on Norah Jones albums parents play around their kids all the time. Add the appeal of Richards’s vocals, which put you in mind of everyone from Shawn Colvin and Feist to Joan Osborne—she has one of those voices that seem to come with a permanent smile—and you have perhaps the most pleasing-to-the-whole-family album of the year. (It’d be a great soundtrack for summer road trips!)

[Cover image courtesy of Sunshine Collective]

New Music: Songs from a Zulu Farm

I thought about trying to become the only U.S. reviewer not to mention Paul Simon in a piece on Ladysmith Black Mambazo’s new album, but it’s just impossible, isn’t it? (Look, I blew it already.) Nearly any American parent’s first contact with the South African a cappella musicians was the now-classic Graceland album, though the half-century-old group long ago made it clear they were a force to be reckoned with long before Simon brought them to an international audience and Grammy recognition.

They remain so, as evidenced by their latest release, Songs from a Zulu Farm. It’s not exactly a children’s album, at least in the sense of one aimed only at kids; I suppose you could call it more a “family album.” It’s essentially a look back by Ladysmith’s leader, the astonishingly energetic 70-year-old Joseph Shabalala, and some of its other older members at their childhoods, through “the songs from the earliest time in our lives,” as Shabalala puts it.

Most of the songs are traditional, and reference either the animal life of the Zulu countryside (for instance, “Ntulube,” which aims to chase river snakes away so the singers can swim) or parental exhortations (“Imithi Gobakahle,” which calls kids indoors as skies darken before a storm), but there is a new song here as well: Shabalala’s own lovely “Thalaza,” a wistful look back by its writer at the innocence of childhood.

Now, these songs are sung almost entirely in Zulu, so beyond some vocally created animal noises in a few of them, there’s not a lot that makes the album particularly more child-friendly much of the group’s previous work. The good news, of course, is that the beautiful isicathamiya vocal harmonies for which Ladysmith has become rightly famous have great kid appeal. And, perhaps anticipating this very issue, the group has included a bridge to their music for the uninitiated youthful listener: the last track, a warm, charming take on “Old MacDonald.”

By the way, Ladysmith Black Mambazo is currently in the midst of a U.S. tour to support the new album, and will be up and down the East Coast over the next month or so. For dates and venues, check out the group's website.

[Cover image: Courtesy of Ladysmith Black Mambazo]

Real Wild Child

After we became parents, we kept listening to “our” music with our son around without a second thought. Sure, we worried now and then about “explicit lyrics,” but c’mon, we’d been scoffing at those labels since Tipper Gore introduced them when we were kids! We weren’t going to shelter Dash. 

Time went by, and now Dash could talk and was asking for Iggy Pop by name. Still, we convinced ourselves he wasn’t listening that closely to the lyrics of “Lust for Life” and wouldn’t be asking us what a “flesh machine” was for years yet. Heck, the song was being used on TV commercials for family cruises—it was obvious that only we and Iggy, and perhaps David Bowie, even knew what the lyrics were saying.

By this time, Dash’s favorite album to listen to in the car was by the Pogues (whose very name was only unobjectionable because he didn’t know the language it was objectionable in); his favorite song on the album was the rollicking “Streams of Whiskey.” It only dawned on us gradually that this might get some surprised looks should it come up in preschool. 

So what to do? We didn’t want to suddenly become hyperconservative on the subject, but we also didn’t want Dash’s preschool teachers asking us why he was teaching his classmates the lyrics to Nine Inch Nails’ “Closer.” (Before you call child services: No, we never really let him hear that one.) We figured there were only a few options:

1. We could lie. Dash mangles lyrics regularly, so we could try to convince him that the “flesh machine” Iggy was singing about was...um, a robot! Or, alternatively, that he wasn’t saying “flesh machine” at all, but “flash machine.” (He’s just talking about his camera!) Problem is, these lies would eventually be found out, and there’s going to be enough hell to pay when the Santa Claus chickens come home to roost. (Plus we’d still have “liquor and drugs” and, oh, most of the rest of “Lust of Life” still to explain away. Seriously, how did this song get picked up for those Royal Caribbean ads? Did someone confuse the different meanings of “cruising”?)

2. We could pull the music—the Pogues and Iggy and Parliament/Funkadelic and the rest of them—out of rotation. We didn’t like this one much either. To take the selfish point first, this would mean we could never listen to any of this music ourselves with the kids around. Beyond that, though, we kind of believe in letting our kids hear good music, you know? According to renowned parenting authority Lou Reed, you can hear the music that saves your life at just five years old. (Let’s just ignore Dr. Reed’s attitude toward parents in that song for the moment.)

So we went with a third option: puttering on as we had been, with perhaps a little more attention to the issue. We don’t actively prevent anything objectionable from reaching our children’s ears, but in cases where it’s just as easy to play something without references to heroin, we do that. If they hear something they “shouldn’t” and ask about it, we explain as honestly as we can under the circumstances. 

And since Dash seems to handle hearing a really appalling amount of adult cursing without engaging in nautical language at school himself, we have faith that he’ll know it’s not appropriate to discuss the oeuvre of Prince in that venue, either. Our laissez-faire attitude may yet come back to bite us someday, I suppose, but we’re not that far from the time when we’ll be losing our absolute control over the music Dash hears anyway. (Or so I rationalize.)

We’re also finding, however, that our own terror of awkwardness breeds vigilance. Dash’s current favorite adult song is Pete Townshend’s “Let My Love Open the Door,” off his Empty Glass album. Perhaps he would have preferred the opening track, “Rough Boys,” if I’d let him hear it, but once I started picturing myself trying to explain leather bars, I hit “skip.” 

As in so many facets of parenting, training your kids really means training yourself.

[Photos: Masao Nakagami (McGowan); elekes (Iggy). Both via Wikimedia Commons.]