During the 20th century, children’s songs evolved from the traditional folk, lullabies, and game songs that were passed on from parent to child, to a multitude of genres, from rap to country, and gospel to rock. Lyrics too have come to reflect more consciously the real-life experience of children, and are now as likely to explore issues of the environment, modern families, and racism, as they are the more innocent themes of the past.
Children’s songs can be loosely categorised as nursery rhymes, rules in games, and educational tunes, with frequent overlaps. Before World War I, these songs, often part of general folklore, were passed on by word of mouth, and varied greatly from region to region, even within individual countries.
With the spread of cinema and the radio between the 1920s and 1930s, much of the regional folk music started to decline taking familiar children’s songs with it. Though, inversely, it also provided new subjects such as film and radio personalities, especially Western heroes, who were worked into songs and games.
Children began to be targeted seriously by Hollywood in the 1940s, and some of the first films aimed specifically at the younger market were Walt Disney’s Cinderella, Pinocchio, and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. The tunes from these successful films became instantly popular children’s songs, actively encouraged by parents. For example, “Whistle While You Work” was used to teach children that “work”—in their case, house chores—could be fun.
The influence of mass media grew even stronger with the dawn of television, and has remained the dominant source for children’s songs. In the late 1960s, many children’s songs began to reflect the wider social changes that were occurring in the adult world. Both television and film shows of the earlier generations offered more protective and controlled environments, where singing and teaching were monolithic in the framework of children’s education. But, in 1969, the revolutionary children’s television show Sesame Street taught its younger viewers the alphabet, counting, matching, and pairing through songs. The show also developed puppet creatures such as Big Bird that would sing educational songs that were entertaining. Actors sang along with puppets in “Some of These Things Belong Together,” a song that helped children learn how to match and pair objects, shapes, food groups, and so on. Children also learned the value of community relationships. Songs such as “The People in Your Neighborhood” familiarised children with the milkman, the postman, and the teacher, among others, and their roles in the community.
In the late 1990s, Sesame Street introduced children to more serious topics such as hospital visits, adoption, and going to day care. Sesame Street Live, the theatrical rendition of the TV show, also taught children about entrepreneurship: children could sing and act out lyrics to songs such as “What Will I Be When I Grow Up.”
And in the cinema, after decades of neglecting children’s animation, Disney returned to its roots and this time with a modern appreciation of what children wanted. For instance, the passive songs such as “Someday My Prince Will Come” and “When You Wish upon a Star” were a far cry from the message of empowerment that comes across in the lyrics “… no one to tell us no, or where to go, or say we’re only dreaming,” from the song “A Whole New World,” featured in Disney’s Aladdin (1996).
In addition to nursery rhymes and educational songs, children in the 1990s became a viable market for pop music. In 1998, nine-year-old pop singer Aaron Carter performed music videos aimed at children his own age, but the songs were also enjoyed by many adults.
Ina Gonzalez
SEE ALSO:
POP MUSIC; POPULAR MUSIC; ROCK MUSIC
FURTHER READING
Cass-Beggs, Barbara. Your Baby Needs Music (North Vancouver, B.C.: Douglas & Mclntyre, 1978);
Ford, Robert. Children’s Rhymes, Children’s Games, Children’s Songs, Children’s Stories (Detroit, MI: Singing Tree Press, 1968).
SUGGESTED LISTENING
Chick Corea: Children’s Songs; Pete Seeger and Brother Kirk Visit Sesame Street.