Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Rockabye Baby!

A British survey by Mother and Baby magazine found that parents prefer to sing their little ones to sleep with pop songs, and have trouble remembering the lyrics to more traditional lullabies and nursery rhymes. Am I surprised? Quite frankly, no. Having trouble remembering? I don't think so. It's a ploy. A chance to regain some sanity you see.

To explain, as I write my son is watching Yo Gabba Gabba on TV, which means one thing; for the rest of the day I'll have 'Yo Gabba Gabba Yo Gabba Gabba' stuck in my head. I'll catch myself singing it when putting the washing out, or humming it while turbo charging through the aisles at the supermarket. As if that's not enough, within the course of a day my son watches more than one show, so at any given time I could have a whole swag of kiddy jingles rattling around inside my grey matter. It could be: 'hot dog hot dog hot diggity dog hot dog hot dog hot diggity dog (thanks Mickey Mouse Clubhouse!), 'There's an animal in trouble, there's an animal in trouble....what's going to work? Teaaaamwork' (hope I can repay the favour one day Wonderpets!) or, not forgetting our British counterparts, 'Yes my name is Iggle Piggle, Iggle Piggle Iggle Iggle Piggle' (you're oh so polite aren't you In The Nightgarden?). And don't think the Australian shows get off lightly, I'm talking to you Wiggles and your  'Hot potato hot potato'!

It doesn't stop with TV shows either. Yes that's right, I'm naming and shaming! Mr Fisher and Mr Price, you know who you are. My son has one of your Yankee Doodle Dandy playing ride on toys. If I go about my day singing 'Yankee Doodle went to town riding on a poneeeee stuck a feather in his cap and called it macaroniiiiiii' one more time, I think I'll go insane. And lets not even go there with your Laugh and Learn Piggy Bank: 'Ohhhhh I'm a piggy bank with coins big and small in lots of colours you can learn them all...oink oink!' Incidentally Fisher and Price, surely you can afford to put more than one female singer on your payroll, must all your toys sound the same?

So is it any wonder that at the end of a day of singing robots and cartoon dogs, oinking piggy banks and ride on cars belting out old revolutionary war numbers, that parents of the world just want to get a little of their own back?

What sing-to-sleep pop songs made it into the top 20 you ask? Take That is at the top of the list with Patience. I Kissed a Girl by Katy Perry makes it in at number 3, while Guns and Roses' Sweet Child O Mine is sitting high in 8th position (I might need to enlist the help of fiance to play some air guitar if I sing that one!). You can read the full article and top 20 here Rocking it. No more lullabies for babies?

Anyway I have to go, Young Einsteins  is about to come on and I don't think I can take another tune at this point....'the puppet show the puppet show the puppety puppety puppet show'....arggghhhhhh!!!





ROCKABYE BABY! NIRVANA: LULLABY RENDITIONS OF NIRVANA (ARTIS (CD)  Rockabye Baby! Lullaby Renditions of U2  Rockabye Baby! Lullaby Renditions of Metallica

5 comments:

  1. Hahahahaha! I can TOTALLY relate. Here are your "mouse-ka-tools" is on in my background right now! When my oldest was younger, I would sing the intro song of Little Einsteins. It was the only thing that would calm her down in the car. It must have been her paying me back for watching episodes of Sex and the City while nursing her when she was a newborn. :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. So funny. I remember those days. Now my son is eight and thanks to Guitar Hero he know more rock songs than I do.

    ReplyDelete
  3. First off, damn you cause now those songs are going in my head. SOB my day is screwed now, LOL.

    Secondly, I love singing songs that aren't just lullabyes to my babies. Because I typically sing happy, love songs to them. I mean, personally I'd rather hear that than a song about a baby falling out of a tree.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I used to have a playlist of childrens songs for driving but one can only listen to Rainbow Connection so many times and forgo the temptation to drive straight into oncoming traffic, so I switched to Radiohead. Which was great until my daughter started going around singing "I don't want to be your friend, I just want to be your lover." Fine, just don't sing it in kindergarten, dear.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Hi Nick, you have a very good blog that the main thing a lot of interesting and useful!hope u go for this site to increase visitor. BTW keep blogging!!

    ReplyDelete