It's interesting that some of the songs on Here Come the 123s are just like "the number 2 is great" and some of the songs are about infinity and fractions and are really kind of abstract, higher math.
My general feeling about writing songs, for kids or for anybody, is that you don't have to assume that everybody understands everything. I think in a way it's better if you don't — you can just say stuff and see if people get it, and they can still like it even if they don't get it. There are plenty of things I find really interesting that I don't understand, so I'm going to go ahead and assume that that's true for kids as well.
What's it like working on children's and adult stuff simultaneously?
With The Else, it's probably a little bit tougher to chew in a way, because it's the stuff that isn't for kids. We probably made it a little less cuddly just by default. The Else is probably the most grown-up thing we've ever done, just by the process of taking out things that are appropriate for kids and putting them on kid records.
Here Come the 123s
And you're playing now to audiences of kids.
Little bit. We're going to be doing some kids shows, doing something similar to what we've done in the past where we'd played in bookstores, with a drummer. Last night at the Beacon was a fourteen-and-over show that was definitely not for kids.
So, you get all the swearing and the nudity out of the way at those shows.
The main thing is, they're not necessarily healthy places for kids — like, we play in clubs where the adults are drinking and smashing into each other. It's a place you hope parents would not think to bring their children, but unfortunately, we find that they do, and they bring them all to the front and it's just an incredibly dangerous and unhealthy place for young kids. So we've taken it upon ourselves to say that they can't bring their kids, just because it's an unbelievable drag to try to control that situation. In a way, it's hard enough just doing a kids show — there's always a sort of worry about the volume level and the safety and the organization, and all that stuff, so that's enough of a job when it's expressly for kids, but it's pretty much impossible when we're doing a show for a mixed audience.
©2008 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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