Macho Duck, Monster Mash, and Mna-Mna

When I was a kid — like, a kid kid; past toddling but not yet in pre-school — I had a little red record player. It was portable (though terribly heavy for a wee one to lug around alone) and plug-in-able (with a retractable cord — wheeee!) and I was tuned in to that piece of equipment attentively and often.

My mother – who, in addition to believing that everything we ate had to be ‘healthy’, also believed that everything we did/saw/listened-to/watched needed to be educational – set me up with Read-Along Books from the time I could recognize letters. For those of you unfamiliar with this concept: Books were read aloud via a recording, and children could hold the book for themselves as the story was being read, following along with the words in the book as they listened to the record and learning to recognize simple words and phonetics as they went.

[And the narrator’s voice says in soothing tones: At the sound of the chime, turn the page…]

: bhhrriiing :

And I enjoyed that.

I truly did.

I credit my mother with turning me into a motivated reader from a very young age. My love of books is one of the cornerstones upon which I was able to build a better life.

Because, education.

BUT

I also enjoyed listening to music.

And I had aunts and uncles and grandparents who enjoyed tweaking my mom’s Always Educational Home of Constant Learn-Fest-ing into something a little more…

I dunno, dance-able?

: laugh :

And so it was that I began my record collection — at the approximate age of three — with such hit albums as:

DISCO MICKEY MOUSE

On which were basically Disney-ized versions of Disco songs, complete with Bee-Gee-esque high falsettos and Village People-copy tunes like Macho Duck. (<— Click it. You know you want to.) And I mean… How can you NOT love a song that begins:

He’s got style, he’s got flare
He’s got two left feet but he doesn’t care

😉

To this day, I can be overheard humming that tune. 😛

Also on my gifted-from-the-grandparents rockin’ record list was:

LOONEY TUNES

Contrary to the similarity in name, this particular record had nothing to do with the Warner Brothers cartoon characters but instead was a K-Tel compilation of, basically, silly songs.

I had a hard time finding a decent image of the album cover, but if you are able to squint and un-blur the song titles for a minute, you’ll see what I mean. This album covered all kinds of rhythmic ridiculousness, from They’re Coming To Take Me Away to The Streak. What it didn’t include – much to my disappointment – was a song that was on one of my cousin’s records that I absolutely LOVED.

Monster Mash!

So since my cousin’s record did not contain Along Came Jones (and he loved that song!) and *my* record did not contain Monster Mash (which *I* adored), we would always spend time listening to one another’s little red record players (or was his blue? I forget) whenever we were visiting each other’s houses. 🙂

And while this last one was a Jim Henson TV song – and unlike his famed Rubber Ducky, it did not make its way onto records when I was a child – it might be my favorite childhood song of all:

MNA MNA!

Which…

Is there really anything else to be said beyond that?

Munah Munah.

😛

Ahywhoo…

You’ve seen my F/m playlists, you know I have a bit of a ‘thing’ for Christmas music, and last year I even invited you to listen to my Halloween candy-passing-out party music.

But that’s all mostly grown-up stuff.

THIS, ladies and gentleman, is Feve’s Kiddie-Years Playlist.

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Welcome to the soundtrack of my life. 😉

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Submitted as a catch-up post for J Lynn’s meme, Musically Ranting, where earlier this year she invited bloggers to share the soundtracks of their lives.

Also for my own projects:

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To learn more about any of these projects or to play along yourself, please click one of the badges above.