So let's talk about Blue Moo, because all the songs are in my head right now.
What's your favorite?
I really like the the nose song, and I think the Interrupting Band is hysterical. The songs are so good; they don't feel strained like a lot of children's music.
The only concession I make to them being "children's songs" in that way is clarity of lyrics; it's too frustrating to not be able to understand the lyrics. Having four children, I found the music put out for children was music that adults wouldn't listen to, and I think that's a big mistake. I think it has to be equally appealing, and ideally you should be listening to the music with your children and enjoying it. And if not, I think there's something wrong. People will say to me, but wait a minute, there are songs that kids love that parents don't love. And I say, well, yeah, kids love donuts too, it doesn't mean they're nourishing.
You have some unlikely musicians on your albums — Meryl Streep, for example. How did that happen?
Well, that particular one was that I happened to know her. Mike and I always work on demos, and that song "Nobody Understands Me" that she ended up doing, we had a demo of it, and I had literally just been saying, "The problem with the singer for this is that you need someone with the acting talent of Meryl Streep to put it across, who can really sing." And literally, I hadn't seen her in a year and she happened by my studio the next day. And of course, as soon as she said she wanted to sing something, everybody in the world wanted to be on that album!
So for this new one, you've got this '50s jukebox style songs, and you're clearly in love with that style.
It's my favorite, absolutely my favorite era of music. And I think for kids to be sharing this music — there's kind of something nifty about that, that you now have three generations and it's new to two of them, and it's incredibly familiar and beloved by the grandparent generation. And a number of people we have on the album, of course, are now grandparents. People hate to "People hate to hear that Davy Jones from the Monkees is a grandfather."hear that Davy Jones from the Monkees is a grandfather, but he is, he's got three grandchildren and he's terrific on the album, he's just amazing. Neil Sedaka has four grandchildren, and he sounds like the same singer. They all sound the same! It's amazing. We searched on YouTube to make sure before we asked people, because people's voices can change, and we kept being blown away. These people are still singing phenomenally.
I love Sha Na Na singing about bananas. They should always have been singing about bananas! What were they doing all time when they weren't singing about bananas?
Those guys are so funny. It's actually a complex song to do live, but they've talked about adding it to their repertoire. It was actually Jocko Marcellino who was our contact with Sha Na Na, and he's been with them since the beginning; he was the youngest performer at Woodstock, so I think he was still in high school then. Recently I got an email from him saying, "Let me know when the book's out cuz I want to put it in Greaser's Quarterly." And I thought, when did I ever dream I'd be in Greaser's Quarterly?
I saw some of the footage of the artists recording the songs. Neil Sedaka looked like he was having the best time.
I was giddy because I felt like I was eleven years old again, and there's Neil Sedaka. But he channeled right back into that era. He was, in a sense, excited to find a new Neil Sedaka song. He said that! He said, "Oh, a new Neil Sedaka song! From back then!"
What was B.B. King like?
The amazing thing about B.B. King — that man is eight-two years old, and he's diabetic so he has a little trouble getting around, phenomenal singer of course, incredible guitar player — but something I didn't know about B.B. King is what an actor he is. And he starts singing that song "One Shoe Blues," and we're watching this man, and he's not doing a kid voice or anything — thank goodness, he's singing it straight — and you're watching, and you believe he's a seven-year-old and his mom's calling him. It was jaw-dropping.
I read on Wikipedia, the most reliable website in the world —
Absolutely, it's all true! Whatever it is you read it's true!
— that you're getting a retrospective at the Norman Rockwell Museum ?
Oh, that's true. That is true! [Laughs.] That's February 2009, and then it's supposed to move to art museums nationwide.
I also read that you've been frequently confused with a man over the years.
Yes! Well, I guess I was first known for my greeting cards, and I just signed with my last name, and I guess there's an assumption that cartoonists are male. I don't know. But I used to get that quite a lot. Now that I'm known for my children's books, it's less likely to happen; there aren't very many male Sandras. But when I don't use my first name — I guess it's 'cause cartoonists are predominantly male. I don't know. Think of an answer and say that I said that. Make it witty. And deep.
©2007 Gwynne Watkins and Nerve Media
About the Author
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Babble editor Gwynne Watkins is a Brooklyn-based writer whose work has appeared both online and in print. She is a consulting editor at Nerve.com, as well as a playwright and a lyricist. Her most recent show, the children's musical Space Pirates, premiered in May. |
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