Earworm

On the way to work this morning I started thinking about an LP I had as a kid, called Children's Dance Party or something. I remember the cover showed a photo, aparently taken in the late '50s or early '60s of a dressed-up boy and girl dancing about three feet apart from each other, against a backdrop of balloons and streamers.

The songs on the album, I realized years later, were pop songs from about 1895-1959 with the lyrics rewritten to be more kid-friendly - Tarrarra-Boom-Di-Yay was now about a marching band, and in Put Another Nickle In, the lines
Closer, my darling, closer
became
Louder, let's play it louder

Sometimes the effects of this bowdlerization were really weird: When I eventually heard the real version of the song, Dungaree Doll, the lyrics went like this, whereas the lyrics on the kid's album, IIRC, went:

I want a dungaree doll, dungaree doll,
Dressed in a shirt and dungarees.
So everyone can see, that that's the doll for me,
Forever and ever and ever.
I want a dungaree doll, dungaree doll,
(I'll let her play my record machine)
So everyone can see, that that's the doll for me,
Forever and ever and ever. (NOTE:the second stanza probably varied, but I don't recall how)
I don't want a doll with a dress and a bonnet,
With no one's initials painted on it.
I want a doll that everyone can see,
Who wears an orange sweater and belongs to me.
etc

(no subject)

Tomorrow is the Small Press Book Fair (noon-5pm, Miles Nadal Jewish Community Centre on the corner of Bloor and Spadina). With the help of some last-minute research into dangerous chemicals, Supervillain episode III will be on the stalls!