As I'm sure just about every mother knows through painful experience, all children's song composers and performers are on drugs. I'm not sure if they're dropping acid, taking hits of ecstasy, or just smoking a nice chunk of crack rock, but the result is always the same. The songs make absolutely zero sense. The musicians and singers are all so peppy and enthusiastically energetic that it makes me want a nap and a gun. Each instrument included in the composition seems designed to trigger a spasm in a different part of the brains of any adults unfortunate enough to be in earshot. The overall goal of children's songs seems to be making the children immediately become obsessed with hearing That Specific Song over and over and over and over while simultaneously breeding homicidal insanity in their parents.
Some songs are worse than others, and it's this upper echelon of ear cancer that captivates my evil daughter. I'm talking about That Fucking Horse. If you've lived your life without ever having encountered this gem before, allow me to introduce you to Rage Baby's favorite song. It's called "Little Red," and it's sung by some hippy named Patty Shulka. Watch it here. This is a song about a horse named Little Red, who really likes to walk, and trot, and run, and gallop and gallop and gallop and gallop and fuck my life. According to the lyrics, Little Red doesn't need to sleep when he's getting ready for a race because someone gives him amphetamines or something. This horse brings obsessive compulsive to a new level. Of course, he goes on to win his big race, The Run of The Roses, but does he stop galloping? No sir, he just keeps on fucking going. Maybe it's because he's forced to listen to the song written in his honor.
If you were foolish or curious or drunk enough to click on it and watch the video with the sound on, then you see my point. The first time you hear it, it's not awful. Stupid, certainly, but kind of catchy. What seems stupid but mildly catchy to me is like baby heroin to my daughter. Over her long career of being pissed off at life, we've tried many things to amuse her. I'd tried showing her the only children's music that doesn't make me want to put myself into a vodka coma, The Wiggles, but she could have given a shit less. I just assumed she wasn't interested in music or TV particularly (my fucking luck) and given up on entertaining her in that way. My sister, however, decided to give it another shot because she hates me.
We were staying in a hotel over the weekend for a hockey tournament and Rage was being her usual charming self. Trying to be considerate of other guests seemed to be futile, because, after all, this is Rage Baby we're dealing with here. But my sister, Squirt, hopped on YouTube and searched "children's songs" and clicked the first one on the list. Of course it had to be Little Red. Of course it fucking did. That Fucking Horse. I snorted derisively and waited for Rage to vehemently denounce the attempt as a pathetic failure. Instead, the trumpet flare at the beginning of the video caused her to jerk her head toward the sound. She was instantly captivated. I swear she did not blink a single time during that first exhibition of many. Squirt and I were pleased with her approval and chuckled quietly, not knowing what horror was to come.
When the song was over, she went back to the list of songs and chose another. This song did not, in any way whatsoever, cause Rage a bit of happiness. Instead she became irate again. My sister tried another song with identical results. After a series of songs that failed to pass muster, we returned to That Fucking Horse and once again, Rage became still and attentive. As soon as the song ended, she began to squirm and complain again. We watched it eight times in a row before she decided she was done with it for the time being. By that time I was covering my ears and pinching the bridge of my nose to alleviate the migraine caused by listening to Little Red gallop and gallop and gallop and gallllllllop.
That Fucking Horse is sometimes the only thing that will shut Rage up for a while. Of course, since it's on YouTube, you can't just put it on repeat and walk away. Nope, that would be too easy. Merely listening to the song, and not viewing the video, isn't enough to quell the angst in the baby, and finding the video for download is something I've yet to be successful with. So, instead, I return to restart the video every two minutes and twenty-three seconds, and start it back up at four seconds in when the trumpet starts. I appreciate that this song and video keep her calm and quiet for a few minutes, but hearing Little Red eight times in a row is really just too much for my fragile psyche to endure (after using this last ditch effort on several occasions, I've calculated the exact number of times she will watch it without losing interest. It's eight. Eight fucking times.). A person should not be expected to put up with this type of psychological torture, but hey, the things we do for our kids, right?
Since discovering the magical effect of That Fucking Horse on Rage Baby, I've continued my search for other children's songs that are slightly less demented and irritating. Until just last week I was unsuccessful in my efforts. She showed no special preference toward that hippy Patty Shukla (I'm sure she's very nice, but if I ever meet her I'm going to stab her for her crimes against my sanity). She had no positive things to say about traditional kids' songs such as the ABCs or The Wheels on the Bus. Barney, shockingly, did nothing for her, since both Happy-Go-Lucky and Taco Princess always loved that purple asshole. Raffi bored the shit out of her, and I can understand because although I listened to (and enjoyed!) his music as a kid, his videos are bland and colorless, and the sound quality on 99% of the videos is shitty. Rage Baby demands quality and high fidelity sound, dammit. A plethora of music videos and clips spanning the different genres within children's music completely failed to make an impression on my fickle child.
Then, recently, one afternoon when Stitchfrank and I couldn't stand to listen to That Fucking Horse another time, he clicked on a link in the recommended videos at the end of the song. The song that he clicked on was The Duck Song, and neither of us expected it to find favor with our little Napoleon but we tried it anyway. To our mutual surprise, she loved it. It's clearly not as popular with her as Little Douche bag Racehorse, but she enjoys it for a little variety in her day. And it has the added bonus of giving us a brief respite from all the galloping. So overall the discovery of The Duck Song has been a happy one, but there are is one minor issue I have with it...
That duck is an ASSHOLE. I mean, seriously, he's a dick who obviously gets off on being as irritating and tiresome as possible to everyone he meets. In not just one video, but an entire series of them, he visits various establishments and inquires if the proprietors have any grapes. He is especially careful to patronize only those places that are unlikely to have grapes on hand, such as a lemonade stand in the first and a convenience store in a later video. After being told no, he leaves, only to return the next day and ask the same fucking question. He does this every day until finally whatever employee he's been badgering loses his or her cool and threatens him or tells him to fuck off. He comes back the following day and manages to twist the threat against him levied previously into something that gives him the final word. The man working at the lemonade stand threatens to glue him to a tree, so the duck comes back the next afternoon and asks him for glue. The dude isn't expecting a new approach, so he answers honestly. Since the duck now knows he can't be glued to the tree, he asks for grapes again. For some inexplicable reason, the lemonade stand guy breaks down and buys the duck his stupid grapes at a grocery store, and when he tries to give the duck one, he tells him no and asks if the store sells lemonade!
What the FUCK, man? I want to know where the morality or respectfulness lesson in this song is, because I haven't found it yet. The kicker for me is that I swear each time Rage Baby watches the video she starts laughing when the duck tells the lemonade guy no. It's an evil little "he-he-he" chuckle that can't possible mean that she grasps the full meaning of the video at ten months. Maybe she just really likes that part of the song. But there's a tiny part of me that knows who her parents are and wonders if it's possible for her to have a sick sense of humor already. I've also caught her laughing at us when we're irritated about something or when one of us accidentally kicks a chair or drops something that breaks. I'm pretty sure she's going to grow up to be a sadist at this rate.
Also, how many talking ducks do you know, if we're getting right down to it? Wouldn't that freak you the fuck out if a duck came up to you and quacked for grapes? And what kind of a duck likes grapes? Or does he even like them? It could be that he actually despises them, since he said no to the ones purchased for him by the lemonade guy, and that for whatever reason they are just a prop in his evil master plan. I don't know, it all seems to come back to those serious drug habits that the children's song makers have.
I guess I'm glad that Rage Baby prefers The Duck Song series to Barney or the Fresh Beats Band. It shows that at least she has some capacity for good taste, even if she does like That Fucking Horse.
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