A Little Thursday Silliness, Uh-huh-huh

Sometimes ideas come from a couple of pretty strange bedfellows getting busy on the Posturepedic of your mind.  Today’s post is an example. 

Yesterday, I was playing with my daughter Maria on the floor in her room with her Disney collection of characters.  Well, actually, she was playing.  I was in limbo, awaiting orders to let me know what my next playtime move would be.  I was lucky that day; she was letting me have Jasmine from Aladdin, who she knows I’m partial to. Usually I get stuck with the Queen of Hearts from Alice in Wonderland, or the Pocahontas figure that won’t stand up on its own.  Anyway, her characters (always the blue-dress version of Sleeping Beauty and usually someone like Belle from Beauty and the Beast or Snow White; today it was the pink-dress Sleeping Beauty) were engaged in an extended conversation about something Rapunzel apparently did or said, and so my mind was left to wander on its own for a few minutes.  My thoughts turned to Whitney Houston, who had just passed away last weekend, and how great a voice she had.  While I was doing that, Maria accidentally pressed a button on the Fisher Price Little People barn with her foot, causing it to spring to life with a lively rendition of “The Farmer in the Dell.” 

Well, these two totally unrelated things somehow tangled themselves together in my mind, and by the time I was able to restore some order in there, I was left with the thought, “What would some of the great singers of the past sound like singing nursery rhymes?  I immediately began to pine for such a collection of songs, but of course, no such thing exists.  So I made one up.

 

Here’s my list of children’s songs, along with the legendary crooners who would sing them.  In each case, I tried to match the singers to the songs I could actually imagine them performing in their own inimitable vocal styles. 

You can try this yourself.  For example, I had Elvis sing “This Old Man,” because in my head, I can just hear him go, “Uh-this old-uh a-man-uh, He uh-played a-one-uh, Uh-he uh-played a-knick-a-knack on my uh-thumb-uh…” 

See?

Anyway, hope you enjoy the following few moments of Thursday silliness.  Weekend’s almost here; let’s go out singing. 

All together now: “Uh-this uh-old man-uh came a-rollin’ home-uh.  Uh-huh-huh.”

K-Thor Records presents:  Swinging Tunes Featuring the Mama Goose Crooners 

Side 1

Louis Armstrong – “Itsy Bitsy Spider”

Tony Bennett – “Pop Goes the Weasel”

Frank Sinatra – “A-Tisket, A-Tasket”

Ella Fitzgerald – “The Wheels on the Bus”

Barbra Streisand – “The Alphabet Song”

Nat King Cole/Natalie Cole/Gary Coleman sing “Row, Row, Row Your Boat”*

Dean Martin – “I’m a Little Teapot”

Jimmy Durante – “Hey Diddle Diddle”

Side 2

Bing Crosby – “Rock-a-bye Baby”

Tom Jones – “Pussy Cat Pussy Cat”**

Harry Belafonte – “Mary Had a Little Lamb”***

Mel Torme – “Bingo”

Elvis Presley – “This Old Man”

Judy Garland – “Old McDonald Had a Farm”

Sammy Davis Jr. – “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star”

Julie Andrews – “Wee Willie Winkie”****

A few notes regarding certain song selections:

* I’m sorry, but you need three people if you want to sing it round-style

** If you can imagine it as a calypso number, it actually works surprisingly well

*** It was either that, or “I Love Little Pussy.”  Obviously, I couldn’t do that.  They are both legitimate nursery rhymes, by the way.

**** Originally, I had her down for “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious,” but, of course, that’s been done.  Actually, Julie Andrews can sing anything she wants.