Sunday, April 30, 2006

I need advice

I'm going to compile a CD of songs and poems for my three little sisters. They are 7 (and triplets). So, the questions are then,

1) when you were a child, did you already have favorite songs or poems?
2) can you think of any songs / poems that 3 tough, athletic, artistic and beautiful 7 year old girls might like?

I have my ideas, but I'm curious what the rest of you might think.
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10 comments:

François Luong said...

i was never tough or athletic as a seven year old. so what i liked back then will probably not matter. i am not ashamed (i am) to admit i really liked michael jackson as a seven year old. and mc hammer too. and run dmc. and i think i also liked fresh prince, but that might have been when i was nine. i also reallyreallyreally liked vanessa paradis (johnny depp's wife).

now i want to forget i was ever six years old.

4/30/2006 10:21:00 PM
Jessica Smith said...

ha... i really really really liked johnny depp! we coulda split them up... but he's a dangerous fellow. i also liked david bowie.

one of my favorite poems from very early although i don't know when, exactly, was dickinson's train poem (i like to see it lap the miles). i also liked the one about going to st. ives (as i was going to st. ives, i met a man with 7 wives...) and the one that goes,
one bright day in the middle f the night
two dead boys got up to fight
back to back they faced each other
drew their swords and shot one another....

this is an "ethnic" poem. :P

i liked madonna and tiffany and disney soundtracks. it was a way different time, though. and i had a very extended childhood, i mean, i had no desire to "grow up" (wear makeup, listen to pop music, etc); i was in my own little world.

what reading level are they at? i can suggest some faves.

and ou should answer your own question, too. what were yours?

4/30/2006 10:45:00 PM
K. Lorraine Graham said...

MUSIC

* Grieg's Peer Gynt Suites (I was learning to "Morning" from Suite 1 on alto recorder, of all things)
* Anything short by J.S. Bach
* Simon and Garfunkel (the first tape I remember playing a lot--my favorite songs were "I am a rock" and "Sound of Silence")
* Cindy Lauper and Madonna (of course!)
* Amazing Grace
* Some folk song with the first verse: " Early one morning, just as the sun was rising / I heard a maid singing in the valley below / O don’t deceive me / O do not leave me / How could you use a poor maiden so?"
* Some Michael Jackson--I didn't really know about Prince or MC Hammer or run dmc until I was older.
* Battle Hymn of the Republic (i.e. "Glory Glory Hallelujia")
* Quaker songs, because my best friend was a Quaker."Walk in the Light" was my favorite"
* Songs from musicals, including "Oliver" and "South Pacific."
* A lot of "camp" songs and hand claps, such as "I'm a nut," "Baby Bumblebee," "Did you ever see a lassie," "Miss Suzie had a steamboat," "Cinderella, dressed in yella," "Sitting a rocker Eating Betty Crocker," (one of the weirder ones) and "Down by the Banks of the Hanky Panky" (not perverted, but this one had the most complicated hand clap)

POEMS:

I'm pretty sure I didn't know about Emily Dickinson. I liked:

* Jaberwocky
* Anything by Shel Slilverstein
* A "nonsense" poem from my 1rst grade reading book: "I stand upon this speech to make a platform / The train has arrived, but has not yet come / so I took a bus and walked / And here I stand before you / to stand behind you / to tell you something I know nothing about

5/01/2006 07:38:00 AM
K. Lorraine Graham said...

Jabberwocky has two bs.

5/01/2006 07:39:00 AM
Jessica Smith said...

i had a book of Bible stories i liked; i liked dr. seuss, esp. The Lorax (ecowriting!) and I LOVE handclapping rhymes, we should do that sometime Lorraine! Clap. For a poetry reading perhaps. Amaze the boys as the friendship bracelets did ("uh, whut?")

I liked Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. And the Quaker song "it's a gift to be simple" (right?) and the "i'm a nut" song and some song abut a baby bumblebee and a song about a little cabin in the woods.

i think the dickinson poem was in a reader at school with a big picture of a train. it was totally like, "this poem is about a train."

Greensleeves. I have always loved it.

5/01/2006 04:08:00 PM
md said...

I liked anything by new edition, ll cool j, and the jackson 5. I also loved that "pass the duchie from the left hand side" by musical youth.

5/01/2006 11:04:00 PM
K. Lorraine Graham said...

Oo, I like the Zena zena song. And Greensleeves, yes--it's so beautiful and so sad.

We should compile a list of hand clapping games and chants. I did have one friend in high school, a boy, who liked to do them with me, but he was a very particular, special case.

Jessica, we could do a performance of them. I think i remember that at MLA 2000, which was in DC and my first MLA ever, Lee Ann Brown and her sister sang the first line from every camp and childhood song they could remember, and that was their performance. But it would be way cooler with hand claps!

5/02/2006 07:42:00 AM
K. Lorraine Graham said...

I know (but had forgotten!) the other songs you mentioned. But what's the desperado song?

Then there's "you put the poker in / and you pull the poker out /and the smoke goes up the chimney just the same / Glory glory hallelujia / and the smoke goes up the chimney just the same" complete with hand motions.

5/02/2006 09:21:00 AM
Jessica Smith said...

i wish they had summer-camps for grown-ups. not like advanced camping stuff but just plain old kayaking horsebackriding lanyardmaking songsinging summer camp. and i don't want to be a counselor. i want to be a camper.

sipping cider through a straw....

5/02/2006 04:08:00 PM
tmorange said...

the beatles, "yellow submarine" and "ob-la-di, ob-la-da"

my parents gave me the 1962-1966 red greatest hits double LP for like my 8th or 9th birthday and i very promptly asked for the 1967-1970 blue greatest hits double LP for xmas (tho they were wary of that one because it was obvious that the beatles were into drugs by that point). i played them so much i practically wore them out. still have 'em. as a child i found the ending of "strawberry fields forever" quite disturbing.

t.

5/03/2006 01:13:00 PM

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