Kid's Music | Peter Alsop

Peter Alsop

Music for Children and Adults

Kid's Music

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May 28, 2014 - 1:18pm -- peteralsop

            When someone we love dies, or when we lose a pet, or when our pumpkin seed project at school wilts and dries up in the window, while Darlene Snodquist’s pumpkin seed plant is lush and green and looks like something Jack could climb in another week or so, ... we get another chance to to feel mortal - to be human and afraid and aware that we only have a limited time here with our friends and family.

            Cool!  How are we gonna use our time?  We gonna be grumpy and mean and selfish?  Or are we gonna sing and laugh and cry and learn as much as we can about ourselves and the other inhabitants of the world around us?

            When I write “Kid’s Music”, (whatever THAT is!), I figure everyone who hears it either is, or was a kid at sometime, right?  So no matter what age or race or height or gender or sexual orientation or cultural background they come from, they will probably want to listen to a song they can relate to!  They know their time is limited here on this planet too.  None of us want to waste any more of our precious minutes listening to songs that tell us we need more “stuff” or our hair has to “look some kind of way” to be okay.  Those kind of songs don’t make anyone feel like singing!

            A kid’s life is full of feelings, (that’s what “passionate” means).  Feelings can be happy and exciting and uplifting, but often they’re painful and uncomfortable, so they’re hard to sell to the general public.  Maybe that’s why “kid’s music” isn’t more commercial.  Kids learn new things at an amazing rate because they take emotional (and physical) risks everyday.  Imagine if us grown-ups took the same magnitude of daily risk, what our world might be like, eh?  I better not write too much about the life-affirming growth potential of kid’s songs.  Someone might think it’s subversive enough to create changes in the way our world is unfolding.  Uh-oh!

 

KID’S PEACE SONG

Cho:   People come in diff’rent sizes                    F-C7

Colors, shapes and names                                    F-C7

Tho’ we're diff’rent on the outside                        F-C7-F-Bb

Inside I think we’re the same!                                F-C7-F 

 

Sometimes happy, sometimes sad                          F-Bb

Scared or silly, mean or mad                                  F-C7

Feelings you have, I have too,                                 F-Bb-F 

We’re not so diff’rent me and you.                         F-C7-F

I’ll bet you have ideas like me                                Bb-F

Our brains are built the same, you see?               C7-F-F7

And if I understand you right,                                Bb-F 

We both love peaceful sleep at night                     C7

Chorus

 

We love to laugh and play and run

And we would never start a war

We’re all afraid of bombs and guns

We know that one fight leads to more.

Our country says we must be ready

For a fight, no matter where

Even though that might be right,

It makes the other countries scared

Chorus

 

It’s time to try a diff’rent way

Where fighting isn’t in the plan

We can be strong without our bombs

It’s time that all the bombs were banned

Kids like us live everywhere

Around the world, in ev’ry land

The words we speak are not the same

But Peace on Earth we understand

Chorus

Chorus

 

Written by Peter Alsop, © 1986, Moose School Music (BMI)

On Take Me With You  -  www.peteralsop.com

 

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