So it is no surprise that I am up late working on John's birthday CD - his fourth b-day party is this weekend. I started googling around his theme "Snakes" today and put together a playlist tonight, which I have memorized, since I wrote it 23 times on the back of jeweled CD cases.
I was wondering why John was so fascinated with snakes, and has been requesting a snake-themed party for months, until Ike and Sicily left for a ski trip in March. I took over reading time for John and he repeatedly pulled a snake encyclopedia off of the shelf that Ike had bought and been reading to him since Christmas. It was interesting - full of valuable snake facts, but each species was accompanied by a cartoon of that snake violently attacking a human or an animal. Hence, the obsession, which I am happy to indulge, even if John has a skewed image of the reptile kingdom.
I wasn't going to do a CD this time, but the kids expect it now, and John has been asking about it for weeks. It is difficult to come up with appropriate snake-themed songs for his age group, I discovered, so I had to loosen the motif a little.
Gitarzan - Ray Stevens
Sweet Singin' Birds - The Peekers*
Crocodile Rock - Elton John
Bein' Green - Frank Sinatra
Trashin' the Camp - Phil Collins and Rosie O' Donnell - Tarzan Soundtrack
Sneaky Snake - Tom T. Hall
Lorau - Igbal Jobi and Party - original snake charmer music
Talking to the Animals - Sammy Davis Jr.
Mah Na, Mah Na - The Re-Bops
Wild Thing - The Troggs
George of the Jungle - The TV Players Theme Group
Snake Lake Blues - Derek and the Dominos
I am proud of the result, if somewhat last minute. I was really sad I couldn't find Count Dracula's version of "How Many Snakes are in My Pants?" on youtube or itunes.
Random Snake Thoughts:
I dated a guy named Snake in college. I was Lizzard. We were the reptile couple. He looked like Kid Rock. We dated 2.5 years. I recently befriended his wife on facebook - he has returned to his given name Paul and has two beautiful girls.
After I extricated myself from that relationship, I bought two pet snakes. Daisy was a Florida kingsnake and Jupiter was an albino cornsnake. I fed them live mice weekly for a year, until I finally gave into multiple requests from a group of guys in Martin Hall and let them go to new owners. I learned they died of vodka poisoning - someone put it in their water bowl. I wonder if it was an accident. I still feel guilty about it.
*I am in love with The Peekers. It has been a musical week - I got 50 new albums in my itunes and loaded as many as would fit into my nano. It makes for hazardous treadmill running, since I will hear a random song and wonder what it is, trying to read the small print on my nano armband while running rapidly. Wolf what? Wolfmother? Dr. Who? Oh, Dr. Dog! Thanks, much - Matt.
No comments:
Post a Comment