This is the last day in the “not only for kids” series and I end with songs that are kind and calm. That is not always the way that kids are, but when they are that way it brings a very satisfying feeling to their parents (unless it causes them to worry that something must be wrong.)
This children’s song series ends as it began, with only two songs in the set. The first one is The Giving Tree from Charlotte Diamond’s 1990 The Christmas Gift album. The song was written by multi-instrumentalist Paul Gitlitz, her long-time accompanist. Like Charlotte, Paul has now retired from touring and moved to Saskatoon where he is a music teacher, runs a recording studio, and generally participates as a musician in the local folk music scene.
I don’t need to tell you who Charlotte Diamond is - I already did that on Dec 16.
Feeding birds in wintertime is a common custom (I do it myself on my balcony) but making a ritual of doing so around Christmas or solstice-time has very ancient cultural roots. In Britain it is an important part of the wassailing ritual for orchards that is done to ensure a bountiful harvest in the coming year. The same custom of midwinter bird-feeding ritual is a very common part of the folklore throughout Europe.
These days people do it mainly for tradition and fun, but some folklorists believe that it descends from the earliest days of agriculture in the Neolithic period when it would have been considered an important religious rite. I think that if I looked into it I would find that traditions of feeding birds on particularly meaningful native trees is widespread beyond Europe, which would suggest that the practice may go back to the time of the invention of agriculture and orchards. Personally, I suspect that people may have been doing it ever since they began storing wild-gathered grain for themselves.
Don’t worry about me now going off on a detailed discussion of how evidence of our earliest ancestor’s culture can be found in folklore now. I already did that in depth in previous postings including this one in 2021 and this one last year.
I am sure that you are all familiar with the song Teddy Bears’ Picnic. The custom of holding of such a group event cannot be nearly as old as ritually feeding birds. Dolls of any sort have only been traced back a few thousand years. The earliest known rag doll is Roman and is dated to around 300 BCE.
Plush-fabric stuffed animals were much, much later. The first one that was commercially made was by the German-based Steiff Company in the late 19th century. The first stuffed animals that were bears (teddy bears have their own Wikipedia entry) were made by Steiff in 1903, and independently by the American toymaker Morris Michtom in that same year. Both companies’ products were instantly very popular in both Europe and North America, and Michtom’s name for them (teddy bears) is now used around the globe. There is something about bears that makes them extra special as stuffed animals.
The song Teddy Bears’ Picnic has international roots from those days. The title and familiar march-style melody was written in 1907 by an American “tin pan alley” composer, John Walter Bratton. It is his only composition that has withstood the test of time. The lyrics were added in 1932 by Irish songwriter Jimmy Kennedy, and in that same year Englishman Henry Hall and the BBC Radio Orchestra did a broadcast performance and released a recording of it with Kennedy’s lyrics. That immediately brought the song international attention and popularity.
Personally, I absolutely love this syncopated, relaxed version of the song. David '“Dawg” Grisman recorded it with Jerry in 1993 in his home Acoustic Disk studio while Garcia was taking a much-needed break from the stresses of touring. You undoubtedly know who Jerry Garcia is, but if your memory needs a little prodding try googling “The Grateful Dead”.
The Teddy Bear’s Picnic is not usually thought of as a Christmas song, but when you think about it Christmas is the only day of the year when such an event could be scheduled. Children are notoriously clingy to their teddy bears. (Believe me, I know! I had a stuffed panda bear when I was a toddler.) It is only on Christmas when young children are sufficiently temporarily distracted by new toys and other exciting happenings that their beloved bears could safely slip away to take part in such an event. And of course, they don’t need to hibernate at this time of the year becasue they live indoors and the cold winter weather wouldn’t bother them because they are entirely made of insulation. So of course this is a Christmas song.
Every Little Wish Raffi Cavoukian, known universally as simply Raffi, was born in Cairo, Egypt where his Turkish parents of Armenian descent lived in exile after having fled their home country due to the Armenian genocide (which Turkey still denies happened.) In1958 they moved to Canada, from which Raffi established himself as one of the English-speaking world’s premier children’s entertainers, and as a champion for environmental and social causes, especially children’s rights for which he promotes a philosophy that he calls Child Honouring. Naturally, he is another children’s entertainer who is a member of the Order of Canada and would now be known as Sir Raffi if his parents had moved to the UK instead of here.
Now personally I think that Raffi, and children’s entertainers in general, have a lot to answer for by infecting so many parents with earworms (Booo Beluga!) but in the case of this song I don’t mind even though an earworm it may become. The words in the song are not factually true but they paint a beautiful image that we can all wish for. He wrote it in 1983 for this album which remains one of the top children’s Christmas albums of all time
Dec 23 - Not only for kids Part 4 - calm and kind