There’s a DVD too that comes with the CD with home-made-y animated/puppet videos for each song – they’re not slick, but they’re funny and good, and they help tie the letter shapes to the letter names.

I’m one of those people who once thought “elemeno” was a single letter so my favourite song on this is probably “LMNO”, but there’s lots of other highlights to choose from, like the whimsical organ-based instrumental “Rolling O” or “Flying V” with its little Cuban piano muntuno. Isabelle’s favourite is “E eats everything” in which all the letters have various food quirks, except for E, who eats everything. “That’s a really good song”, she says. “Yeah, well”, says I. “It’d be nice if you ate everything.” “Don’t be silly, Dad.”

Alphabet of Nations E eats everything Flying V Rolling O L M N O

Normally I don’t get into music quickly – even stuff I end up loving will often take me 3 or 4 or 10 listens before I start to like it. Not so this CD – the first time I heard “Pieces of 8ight” I just couldn’t keep the smile off my face, it’s just so ridiculously up my street. I’m favourably disposed to seafaring and pirate-y stuff for a start, having worked as an oceanographer for a while and being, believe it or not, actually descended from pirates – according to my mother-in-law’s genealogical books the surname Parle comes from French pirates shipwrecked off south-eastern Ireland. There are other origin stories for the name, of course, but that’s the one I’m going with (wouldn’t you?). And as for the music, well, there’s a Russian-sounding melody and a xylophone and lots of “HEY!”s (Isabelle thinks it sounds like Gogol Bordello), so how can I resist? Isabelle loves it too – the first time I put it on she instantly got up and started dancing round the kitchen . And it’s got an amazing video, check it out:

The rest of the music is very diverse (Niamh thought it was a compilation at first) – there are other pirate-y sounding tracks like “Scallywag”, then there’s some Pogues-y traditional sea-shanty fare like “Weigh anchor” and then there’s rock’n'roll tunes like “Pirate party” and one real Flaming-Lips-style noughties indie rocker about a sea monster. The only misstep is yet another version of “Nellie the Elephant” (what is it with rock bands and Nellie the Elephant?) that doesn’t measure up to Mandy Miller’s original but the hilarious introduction to the song makes up for it. The rest is all great – really well-written party songs with really funny lyrics and interludes. I’d absolutely love to see them live, though being from the north-western US I don’t expect they’ll be setting their compasses for Ireland anytime soon. The album has achieved the ultimate accolade in my book – I’ve gone and learned two of the songs – so next time you’re at a party with me (not that I go to many parties these days) expect to hear me calling on myself to sing them.

Weigh Anchor Pieces of 8ight Pirate Party Scallywagg Sea Monster

Me: “Apple apple apple growing in a tree …”

Her: “STOP! STOP! You’ll put me off the song before I even hear it properly!”

It was harder to stop than you’d think, I’d suddenly realise I was singing “App ..” and think “Oh no! I’m doing it again” and snap my mouth shut half way through the first word before Niamh could give me a Stern Look.

There’s a cool kinda home-made feel to this CD. Niamh reckons it sounds like The Moldy Peaches doing Sesame Street, which I guess means the songs are very (very!) singalong-able and the production tends towards the spontaneous rather than the slick, like it was recorded on a budget by musicians intent on enjoyment rather than perfection. The lyrics are more fun, and less preachy, than you’d expect from a record that deliberately sets out to extol the virtues of healthy eating, and the song titles are brilliant – “Tomatoes are so wonderful they make me want to cry”, for example, or “A mango is a precious egg to be cherished”. Isabelle’s funny bone is tickled bigtime by the occasional silly voices and crazy sound effects, as well as, oddly, the line “Jump up and down/Because potatoes are brown” in “Lots of different colors”. She also likes to make up her own imaginary vegetables for the empty singalong verses in the same song, and to dance madly to “Growing like crazy” as it gets faster and faster and FASTER. I love the little variations on the indie-rock template – there’s a waltz in here, plus an occasional appearance from a latin-sounding horn section. It’s the tunes though that really make the whole CD stand out – irresistibly melodic and heaps of fun.

Apple x 3 Water the loveliest beverage Lots of different colors The stone fruit salute A mango is a precious egg to be cherished

I asked about the warm-up music and it turns out it’s a genre called reggaeton that’s big in the US and huge in Latin America (particularly Puerto Rico). And it turns out one of the tunes that I love best is taken from this CD here – kids performing sanitised versions of reggaeton hits (sanitised because apparently the lyrics are pretty saucy, but they’re mostly in Spanish so I can’t tell).

The first time I put on the CD for Isabelle she just stared open-mouthed at her mother doing her perreo dancing to it in the kitchen (as did I, hoho). Then, after I’d played it in the background a few more times she started to ask for “the rompe CD”  – after the version of “Rompe” (originally by Daddy Yankee) that’s on it, which was the one that caught my attention in the salsa class. Then next thing you know bedtime stories are out the window again (the sure sign of a hit in our house) and we’re listening to it round the clock. Heather even, first thing in the morning when only her and me are up, shuffles over (she’s bypassed crawling and is instead shuffling around on her bum) and stares wistfully at the stereo until I put it on and then she’s chuckling and doing her crazy head-shaking dance and throwing her hands in the air like she just don’t care.

To be honest I really didn’t expect to like this album all that much apart from “Rompe”. The first song on it is a version of that Shakira hit “Hips don’t lie” which I found pretty grating in the original, and seeing it on the tracklisting nearly put me off. But, it turns out, if you subtract Shakira’s auto-tuned voice and the ridiculous lyrics (“keep on reading the signs of my body”) it’s actually a really good tune, and that reggaeton beat is … well, it’s irresistable. I’ve ended up getting totally hooked – I just love the first 4 tracks, and I’ve it constantly playing on my headphones in work as well as in the house. Though at this stage we’ve had to re-instate bedtime stories again, as this isn’t very appropriate wind-down music for bedtime … and me and the kids turn it off when Niamh gets up, because she needs a little quiet time first thing in the morning.

Anyway – a hit! Here’s the full niños version of Rompe on youtube, if the clips are not enough for you.

Kids don’t lie (Hips don’t lie) Rakata Rompe Ven Bailalo Machucando

They Might Be Giants

One of my fellow dads-in-bands introduced me to They Might Be Giant’s children’s music output. The first time me and Niamh listened to this CD we were doing the washing up, and by the time we got to “There’s only 1 everything” (track 3) we were grinning and dancing around the kitchen like teenagers. The basic template, I suppose, is American alternative rock but very quirky, very melodic, and fun fun fun! There’s lots of musical highlights – the Elton-John-esque (back when he was good) “I’m the number 2″, the killer sax riff on “Seven”, the little girl’s singing on “One dozen monkeys” – and some fantastic lyrics. Check this out:

Nine bowls of soup on the wings of an airplane/Flown by an ichthyosaur

Haha! Amazing! There’s also a couple of non-number-themed tracks at the end, like “Hot dog!” and the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse theme – when I saw this I was moaning about Disney putting in irrelevant Disney-related bonus tracks, but then I realised They Might Be Giants actually wrote them. There’s an accompanying DVD too, with Sesame-Street-ish little videos for each of the songs and inter-song banter from two woollen puppets both called John.

Isabelle actually took a little longer to warm to this than me and Niamh did, and it took the Mickey Mouse tunes and a look at the DVD to really convince her, but after that she was a Fan and we listened to little else for weeks. I regularly hear her singing “Triops has three eyes” to herself when she’s supposed to be going to sleep, and “Days of the week” now rivals the elephant’s march from The Jungle Book soundtrack as our favourite marching song (it’s lyrics being particularly close to my heart – “On Monday I never go to work/On Tuesday I stay at home/…”). I’ve even overheard her mother singing “One dozen monkeys” in the shower.

So yeah, a bit hit with all the family – in fact it’s the best album of any kind I’ve bought so far this year. And if that’s not a high enough recommendation, I’ve just found out that this won a Grammy this year for “Best musical album for children”.

There’s only 1 everything Number two Seven Seven days of the week One dozen monkeys