I am heading into another Break Week and have given myself 15 minutes to research and complete this post. A cursory inspection has determined that, at the moment, there ain’t no bugs on me. Having completed that research, I have chosen “There Ain’t No Bugs on Me” as the Song of the Week.
When most of us think of songs recorded for children we consider Sesame Street and Raffi and the late Jerry Garcia. Back in 1993 Uncle Jerry was taking his own break from the Grateful Dead and got together with fellow musician extraordinaire David Grisman to produce an album called Not For Kids Only. The songs, which Garcia and Grisman described as “our answer to Barney,” were all well known, acoustic and found in the Old Time-String Band Songbook (which was formerly called The New Lost City Ramblers Songbook).
The record has the feel of two old friends sitting on the porch singing to the neighborhood children – though occasionally they would have to bring percussion, trombones, violins and cellos, a piano and other instruments onto their imaginary porch. It is a well-produced collection of songs, but it evokes the flavor of Woody Guthrie’s Songs To Grow on for Mother and Child, which was recorded in 1947 and released in 1956. That record was, I believe, simply Woody and his guitar in a very low-key recording session.
Woody did not record well-known songs as Garcia and Grisman did. In fact, it seems that he probably made several of them up as he was singing. Here are some sample lyrics:
“I’m a little baby one day old,
I’m a little sweet thing two days old,
I’m a little doodlebug three3 days old,
I’m a little cutie pie four days old.”
(From “One Day Old”)
“Grass, grass, grass,
Tree, tree, tree,
Leafy, leafy leaf,
1-2-3.”
(From “Grassy Grass Grass”)
Coming back to Uncle Jerry and Uncle Dave, in 1999 those two “wrote” a 40-page children’s book called There Ain’t No Bugs on Me, which consisted of a cassette recording of the song accompanied by illustrations by Bruce Whatley, who is one of Australia’s most highly regarded writers and illustrators of children’s books.
Now my 15 minutes is up, so here is the song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TY8vLI4buo