Oh, the agony

Until now, my pet peeve about baby/kids' "stuff" are the songs (whether sung at circle time or Heaven forbid, actually recorded on a CD) that have alternate lyrics to a tune traditionally known as some other song. And even worse, when most of the public knows the song by the alternate lyrics, not the original. Like Barney's "I Love You" song is really "This Old Man", but I might just want to go into hiding if Tobey and Eli's generation knows it as Barney's song.

I've come to grips with the alternate lyrics issue above. We parents all actually do it, just making up songs to entertain our kids and our idle brains. Tom is actually master of it, making up his own days of the week song (tune of "One Little, Two Little, Three Little Indians"; note: the song doesn't really "work") and the song he sings while stuck at a traffic light ("O Where, O Where Did My Greee-een Light Go?"). I used to roll my eyeballs and refuse to sing along except when I'm stuck in a car with a fussy Tobey and have to resort to singing these songs myself, especially when Tobey asks for them by name. And to think, someday soon at preschool, they will sing some OTHER alternate Days of the Week song (tune of "Oh My Darling") and Tobey will stand up and say, "No! It goes like this..." and sing Tom's wacky version. Ms. Crystal and Gu-Laoshi will be speechless.

But I digress. Alternate lyrics was my pet peeve. That is until my new pet peeve as of five minutes ago: Chinese CD's with bad rhythm.

I just heard "If You're Happy and You Know it [Clap Your Hands]" on this Chinese CD. The song traditionally starts "If you're" on beat 4, a lead in or pick up and "Happy" is on beat one. But this CD sang "If you're" on beat 1. This had me in confusion for the duration of the song, like something was off, like the voice track and the background track weren't in sync, like I'm walking with a rock in my shoe, like when my college buddy Chi (bless her heart) used to be able to sing a whole praise song in the key of D, while playing guitar chords for the song in the key of G, PERFECTLY (Tom too posesses this rare talent). The worst part of the song on the Chinese CD is that obviously has "extra notes" leftover at the end because it basically starts a beat too late. So they just squash it in at the end of each verse.

No, actually, the worst part of the song is that it's on a CD for Chinese kids all over the world to hear. Is there no quality control? Was there no one with any music training to 1) have either heard that song before correctly or 2) just feel in their gut that the song sounds "wrong"? It's no wonder Asians typically have no rhythm, can't clap on 2 and 4, and can't sway naturally to the likes of our church's Gospel Choir. They just don't have it in them. Because of bad music like this kids' CD.

I know it's the music snob in me that makes these atrocities in music grate on my ears like fingernails on a blackboard. But I can't knowingly allow my children to hear this (although I did just let Eli listen to it). An article came out this week about music lessons and training boosting children's intelligence. But I'm sure it has to be good music training and that Chinese CD just ain't it.