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In the world of well-worn kids’ songs, there’s the good, the bad, and the annoying. Those melodies and lyrics are so hardwired into our psyche, we don’t even know the meaning of what we’re singing.
We say — stop the madness! Here are five songs that should be stricken from the most popular kids’ song lists:
1) Ring Around The Rosy
The meaning of this song is anything but rosy. Sure it has that fun finale “we all fall down,” but unfortunately — since the lyrics are in reference to the Black Plague of 1665 — everyone’s falling because they’re dropping dead. Here’s a breakdown of a few lyrics:
Ring around the rosy
First symptom of the plague was red, rosy cheeks– think about that the next time you brush on your L’Oreal mauve blush.
Pocket full of Posies
In a futile attempt to ward off the “black death,” people would carry posie petals in their pockets–about the equivalent of a glass of Airborne — totally useless.
Ashes, ashes we all fall down
A children’s song that references a standard burial sermon? Hey kids, let’s go to a funeral!
Why this song is considered a lullaby is anyone’s guess. What it is, is a lawsuit waiting to happen. Who was the manufacturer of that cradle? It obviously should be recalled before more unsuspecting babies plummet to the ground. Lulling your child to sleep with a tale of a shoddily constructed bed is like telling them the Big Bad Wolf will be waiting for them in their dreams. Not advised.
3) There’s a Hole in the Bucket
First major problem of this traditional folk song is, it has no end — kind of like housework. It incorporates something known as an infinite-loop motif — which in layman’s terms means singing it will make you go loopy. What’s more, it’s sung in an irritating, monotonous rhythm by two country bumpkins named Henry and Liza. The pair — perhaps a dysfunctional married couple — are trapped in a living hell over a broken bucket. After 17-plus refrains of this never-ending tune you’ll feel like kicking the bucket yourself.

momlogic.com

Over the years America’s Superchick have reinvented their sound. Initially being perceived as purveyors of teen pop, their new album ‘Rock What You Got’ sees the sister-fronted band honing a “rock-o-tronic” sound - an electro-punk mash-up of slashing guitars, pulsing keyboards and grit-pop vocals. Here the band’s founder and producer Max Hsu gives his thoughts about each song on Superchick’s newie.
“Rock What You Got”
Once upon a time, there was a duckling that looked a little different than everyone else. The other ducklings made fun of it a lot. At puberty, that duckling got teased about its high forehead. When that duckling grew up, it turned out it wasn’t a duck at all. It was Tyra Banks. We’ve all heard that story. It’s easier to believe we’re ugly than to believe that we are fearfully and wonderfully made. You have to fight the lie; no one hands it to you. You have to shake off the insecurities and the beliefs that hold you down. When I see people being who they were created to be, they light up the world around them. You can be that person. I can be that person. If there was hope for this ugly duckling, there’s hope for everyone. Be who you were meant to be.
I studied computer science in high school. I had an uncle at IBM who helped to develop the microdrive. I spent four years studying computer science and when I graduated I got recruited at a big network solutions company. I was there for five years until the tech collapse left us all without jobs. Now I’m doing IT maintenance at a big box chain. Every day I get to work, fix the same problems and play solitaire until 5.30 when my boss isn’t looking. Superchick never existed. We didn’t sell 700,000 records. I never met all the amazing people that are my friends today. I didn’t see 30,000 of them jumping up and down at our show in New Zealand. I never wrote and produced records. I never photographed covers for magazines and albums. I never shot music videos. I never tried surfing, bought my motorcycle or jumped out of a plane. I never met my wife. Well, that’s what would have happened if I’d done the “sensible” thing. But everyone is born with a destiny. God gives us talents that he means us to use. We are meant to live, while we’re still alive.

crossrhythms.co.uk

To by:Larm or Not to by:Larm
One Man’s Unexpected Trip to Oslo
By Vish Khanna
“I can’t believe it: I’ve never been to Norway.”
That was me after learning that I was going to attend the tenth anniversary edition of the by:Larm music conference, which travels around to different cities in Norway yet had avoided the capital city of Oslo until this past February. As it turns out, I was and am not alone. Many, many people I know have never been to Norway either and some may never make it there. Having dropped in for four days and three nights to cover a festival with a jam-packed schedule, I can’t say I really had time to process what Oslo was all about. The most I could do was walk all across downtown to the different venues, interview local and visiting attendees, catch up on sleep in the downtime, and fit in some minimal sightseeing when I could. So, while I didn’t get to delve into the cultural implications of by:Larm in quite the manner I hoped to, the following recounts a lot of what happened on this odd but memorable excursion.
As the date of my departure crept up, I realised I was pretty unprepared for this trip. Meeting several work deadlines right up until my plane left on Wednesday meant I’d put off figuring out what Norway’s kroner was worth in Canadian currency or just how lost I’d be without knowing how to speak Norwegian. I feel a little better when my colleague Stuart Berman arrives at the gate and admits that he too is planning on winging it a bit, counting on his credit card and English to get him through, at least initially.
The other thing is, I’m already completely exhausted and on no sleep at Pearson International. Knowing full well that I don’t really crash-out so great while I’m mobile, I still plan to get some shut-eye on the seven-hour trip to Amsterdam. The flight is smooth and enjoyable, mostly thanks to the airline’s on-demand film service, which enables you to choose from countless films and TV shows (both “popular” or new and “classics”) that you can pause, stop, or switch from. I watch Atonement (good), The Simpsons Movie (okay), and great sitcoms (It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, 30 Rock, etc.) to waste my time. What I should be doing is sleeping but I can’t and am a real zombie when we land at Amsterdam’s Schipol for a short layover before a two-hour flight to Oslo. I preview some of the new Constantines record on Berman’s laptop and skim through my Lonely Planet guide to Norway, which mentions Vikings but nothing about the country’s renowned black metal scene.

exclaim.ca

When they first started gigging two years ago at Cardiff University in Wales, Los Campesinos! would occasionally be mistaken for a flamenco band—that is, until the flamenco aficionados saw the seven indie-rockers on stage.
“Had we thought we were going anywhere, we would’ve put more thought into the band name,” laughs the band’s singer and resident glockenspiel player, Gareth, who like all the members uses Campesinos as his surname. “Our guitarist Neil was pretty fluent in Spanish and we all thought the word [which means ‘peasants’] looked and sounded pretty cool. So why not? But it’s ended up that people make all sorts of assumptions that really have nothing to do with the band or its intentions. People show up expecting a flamenco band, or a political band, and leave quite disappointed. They suggest it’s in bad taste or inappropriate. We’re not trying to upset anyone. We’re not that kind of band.”
Indeed, the Campesinos are a modest bunch by any standard. Their bus driver on a recent tour of Europe had to pull over to admonish the band—not for being too loud, but for not being loud enough. “He came back to ask us to make more noise because he was worried he would fall asleep while driving us to the next show,” Gareth says. “We’re not very good at being rock stars.”
But the septet are becoming stars almost in spite of themselves. A series of terrific singles, notably “You! Me! Dancing!,” ushered in an acclaimed debut album, “Hold On Now, Youngster …” (Arts & Crafts), released last month. The band’s exuberant melodies and co-ed harmonies, tinged by Harriet Campesinos’ violin playing and Gareth’s frantic glockenspiel, reinvest indie-rock with an often-ignored virtue: joy.
“We were depressed by the music we were hearing while at Cardiff,” Gareth says. “It was boring, derivative, masculine. In the context of U.K. guitar bands who were into looking cool, moody or stylish, we were anomalies: A mixed gender band with multiple instruments who looked like they were enjoying themselves.”

latimes.com

“Don’t worry if I write rhymes, I write checks!” P. Diddy, Bad Boy for Life (2002)
I was kinda bugged when I recently found out that Rhymefest wrote most (if not all) of Kayne’s banger, “Jesus Walks”. But not as bugged as when I found out that everyone’s favourite street disciple ghostwrote a couple joints on Mr. Smith’s Big Willie Style a while back. To me, there’s something almost Milli Vanilli-ish about an emcee using a ghostwriter. It’s sorta like a chef hiring a cook or a porn star using a body-double and lying about it. But the more I look back, the more I have to accept the fact that ghostwriting’s really nothing new.
Big Daddy wrote for the diabolical one, among others. You could probably field a West Coast all-star squad with the folks who’ve written the Good Doctor’s rhymes. Run-DMC wrote most of License to Ill. Kriss Kross and L’il Bow Wow came live and direct from Jermaine Dupri’s pen, which probably means Da Brat’s filled up a notebook (or two) for hire. Every rhyme slinger from DOC to Eminem to Scarface to MC Ren to Ice Cube to B.I.G. and Melle Mel have put their share of words in many an emcee’s mouth. Most heads know about V.A.’s prolific gun-for-hire Skillz. And of course, back on Vol. 2, Mr. (S dot) Cater himself, told y’all what he’d do for the right price. Come to think of it, T.O.N.E. ghostwrote half of his older brother (the legendary T-La-Rock)’s album, while most of Rapper’s Delight came straight outta Grandmaster Caz’s notebook. (Okay, so that last one was more of a jack-move, but you get my point.) But track records and tradition aside, the question remains:
Is ghostwriting actually good for hip-hop?
Consider: For all its realness and down-to-earthiness, no one’s ever really expected the typical country singer to write all their own songs. I mean, it’s just understood that some folks can sing, some can write and while it’s nice to be good at both, you don’t have to do both in order to be accepted as authentically “country.” No one expects the pop singer to write all their own lyrics. (God knows Britney Spears, Lindsey Lohan, Ashlee Simpson, Blink 182, Madonna, etc. didn’t get signed for their lyrical gifts.) And to be fair, no one ever accused Whitney Houston, Anita Baker, Luther Vandross, even Mary J. Blige of writing all their own songs. Elvis didn’t write much of anything he sang. And if you’ve ever sat thru a symphony or an opera, you know that most classical music comes courtesy of long-dead and gone composers. In the end ghostwriters of one kind or another have been part of every genre from jump. And no matter who supplies the words, we love the voice and the genre, just so long as the music is good.

trudeausociety.com

Tuesday night’s penultimate “Idol” performance show reminded us that after three long months, the seventh-season crown will go to either “a high school student,” “an actress” or “a barrrrtender.” (Considering who we started with this year, it’s a good thing America voted the way it did, otherwise Seacrest would have had to refer to a male stripper, a sushi waitress, a horse whisperer, a Rastafarian, a failed major-label pop star or a failed bald pop star instead.)
The remaining contestants each had three songs to perform: judge’s choice, contestant’s choice and producer’s choice. (I hope Nigel Lythgoe allowed executive producer Cecile Frot-Coutaz in on the conversations. Going by her name alone, I bet she has a lot of spunk.)
Before I start ranting about how excited I was to see my celeb crush in the audience — How you doin’, Emily VanCamp? And, um, Marilu Henner? — let’s get right to the performances!
Round One: Judge’s Choice
David Archuleta: Billy Joel’s “And So It Goes”
Syesha Mercado: Alicia Keys’ “If I Ain’t Got You”
David Cook: Roberta Flack’s “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face”
Perhaps taking a cue from my top-three recap last year, “Idol” finally ditched the outdated “fax-the-contestants” conceit and had the judges text the singers their song choices instead. Notable exception here was David Archuleta, who received the news from Murray, Utah’s mayor Dick Dastardly. But I understand why Paula didn’t text David A. Last time she messaged a young male contestant, it came back to haunt her. (Cue “Paulatics.”)
Abdul’s pick for the young whippersnapper was Billy Joel’s heartbreaking “And So It Goes,” because, as she explained, “[It] shows the level of difficulty in the melodies that I know you can handle.” Say what you will about Joel, but a difficult-melody writer he is not. I think somebody switched Paula’s Storm Front CD with the score to Sondheim’s “Company.”

mtv.com

Diva. Di-va n. pl. divas [It, lit., goddess, fr. L, fem. of divus, divine, god—more at DEITY] (1883): Prima Donna. Thus, the dictionary describes what we know as the great female singer who dominates our culture. Brazil has had her share of these goddesses, and Brazzil is taking this opportunity to take a closer look at these ladies. A new generation of these great ladies of song is growing up, but we would be doing an immense disservice to the listeners of today, if we left out those that came before and created the tradition of the Brazilian DIVA.
CARMEN MIRANDA (1909-1955)
The Lady with the Tutti Frutti Hat.
Carmen was born Maria do Carmo Miranda da Cunha on February 9, 1909 in Marco de Canavezes, Província de Beira-Alta in Portugal. Thus, she was not born Brazilian as many think. She was still a toddler when her family moved to Rio de Janeiro, where she was raised in the carioca Bohemian environment. She loved to sing, something that cost her a job as a necktie saleslady. The manager of the establishment fired her for distracting her co-workers, who stopped working to listen to her sing.
Her début on the carioca stages was a success. Josué de Barros, well known composer of that era, perceived her potential when he first saw her. He resolved to invest in her career, paying for singing and diction lessons and even accompanying her to radio shows and record companies. This effort was not in vain. Soon she recorded her first record.
Carmen Miranda was a petite woman, somewhere around 153 cm (just over 5 feet). Consequently, she liked to wear very high-heeled platform shoes. For this reason, radio personality César Ladeira baptized her "The notable little one."

brazzil.com

The first go-round for Australia’s Go-Betweens lasted six albums and nearly a dozen years—call it the ’80s with a running start. And though band founders Robert Forster and Grant McLennan professed harder-edged influences like the Saints and the Velvet Underground, their resulting partnered sound emanated with a harmonious polish, like a more optimistic version of the Cure or the Smiths. Soon enough, Forster and McLennan—like Squeeze’s Difford and Tilbrook—were inextricably and positively compared to Lennon and McCartney, but the expected correlative commercial success proved elusive. So following the soft landing of 1988’s 16 Lovers Lane, the consensus pick for best Go-Betweens album and the group’s last, best chance for ecto-Australian stardom, Forster and McLennan parted professional ways. The duo stayed friends, at times even touring together as each launched a career alone. Forster recorded four solo albums, and McLennan recorded four solo albums. The pair, it seemed, was always in lockstep.
But while critical notice kept pace with their individual ventures, the decade-long dalliances drew to a close. In the year 2000, Forster and McLennan reclaimed the Go-Betweens name and, backed by Sleater-Kinney, recorded Friends of Rachel Worth, the first of three albums of original material for the new century.
At the end of this month, Forster will release The Evangelist, his fifth solo album and his first since the Go-Betweens reunited. But the partnership, the lockstep, has been broken. On May 6, 2006, while napping prior to a party, Grant McLennan suffered a massive heart attack, cutting short a brief life and long collaboration.
It’s a blustery day on the Lower East Side. By mid-afternoon, the remains of unexpected early-morning snow showers have reanimated as puddles of gray, slushy water bouncing against the curbside in the wake of passing cabs on Avenue A.
We’re here, of course, to discuss The Evangelist. But we’re here, at the Hi-Fi, because two trips ago—not the Go-Betweens’ last New York show (a Mercury Lounge gig attended by Glenn Close dressed in so much white she could’ve re-created her role in The Natural), but the trip before that—McLennan and his label’s publicist came to the Hi-Fi, a bar owned by the publicist for 16 Lovers Lane, to drink. A lot. And so, quite possibly, the Hi-Fi is the last bar in New York City where McLennan imbibed with dedication and fervor.

villagevoice.com

APRIL showers not only bring May flowers, they also bring Damien Dempsey backto our shores.
Damo will be hitting the road this month, playing dates through the East Coastand Midwest. He’s back for the second U.S. tour supporting his 2007release To Hell or Barbados on indie label United for Opportunity andwill be bringing along New York-based, Boston-discovered singer-songwriter JessKlein when he pulls into the Knitting Factory in Manhattan on Friday, April 25.
Klein has been touring in support of her seventh album, Live at Mo Pitkin’sHouse of Satisfaction, which was recorded over two shows at the famous, now formerNYC venue. Her bluesy-folk ditties went over very well when she supported LukaBloom on this last tour, so this promises to be a great double bill!
This has been a fruitful 12 months for Dempsey. He was the winner of the prestigious MeteorAward for best folk/traditional in 2008 for To Hell or Barbados,which debuted in summer 2007 at number two in Ireland’s traditionalretail (only 164 units behind Bruce Springsteen’s Live in Dublin), andhit number one on iTunes Ireland.
After years of touring and in support of people like Bob Dylan, Shane MacGowan,Sinead O’Connor and Morrissey, it would appear that Dempsey has finallyhit the big time. In addition to the solo show, he will be sticking aroundto open for Oscar award winning Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova (performing asthe Swell Season) who took Best Original Song for “Falling Slowly”in their film Once, during their current U.S. tour of the Midwest.
Damo will continue that winning streak with The Rocky Road is the Dublin, thesinger’s sixth studio album, which lands on our shores this summer. A collectionof mostly old traditional ballads, it contains versions of “The Foggy Dew,”“The Hot Asphalt,” Ewan MacColl’s “Schooldays Over”and MacGowan’s “A Rainy Night in SoHo.”
I hadn’t spoken to Damo since the album was released last year, so therewas lots to catch up on! Here’s how it went:

irishabroad.com

The U.K. garage thrashers, The Kills, return from a three-year hiatus for their third studio album, “Midnight Boom,” bringing scratchy, abrasive sounds and fresh lyrics to the forefront. Unlike the White Stripes and other female-male duos, Allison “VV” Mosshart and James “Hotel” Hince turn away from the bluesy-rock archetype to lift their sound to an unsteady cool.
With their first single, “U.R.A. Fever,” Mosshart and Hince exchange sassy vocals to heighten the grainy guitar licks under sleek, laidback tones. With lyrics like, “You are a fever / You are a fever / You ain’t born typical,” spoken over a telephone dial tone, the song delivers an inventive groove befitting to their style.
Tracks like “Sour Cherry” and “Getting Down” breed high energy, mid-tempo fire-starters, providing bouncy melodies, hand claps and onomatopoeic echoes.
For bitter and atmospheric overtones, The Kills dip into slow, melancholic moods on the finale song, “Goodnight Bad Morning.” Smooth piano chords and humming guitar licks fulfill the rest of the sweet, nostalgic track.
Overall, this short but stingy album keeps the listener attentive to the band’s balance between ultra-sexy and rough indie styles. The Kills still manage their flare for erratic guitars and creative beats, adding more chemistry to an already appealing sound.

flathatnews.com