Tuesday, May 6, 2014

A children's song

I sing to my son all day long. Sometimes they're songs I know from my childhood, sometimes hymns, sometimes songs I make up. We listen to so much music. Classical plays in his bedroom. Anything on Daddy's iPod in the living room. Pandora everywhere else. I like to think that he's constantly in his own personal music education classroom.

That said, some of these songs I learned in my childhood have lyrics that I'm not sure I want my son to internalize.

One little, two little, three little...Indians? Um... I replace that with "children" or something similar, but it doesn't quite work at the end of the song. Sing it through. You'll know what I mean. "Ten little happy boys" might work as the last line.

Anyway, the song that stands out in my mind is a classic - "Jesus Loves the Little Children."All the children of the world. So far, so good. It's the third line that bugs me. "Red and yellow, black and white" just doesn't work anymore, if it ever did. People take offense to being labeled with a color. Besides, I'm not white. My skin is light peach. Or tan. With freckles. And blue veins and red-flushed cheeks.

So I changed the words. Here's the original if you want to reference it. The first verse here is not entirely mine - I'm pretty sure it shows up in the blue Covenant Hymnal, but Hymnary doesn't have that information. However, I did make up a second verse.

Jesus loves the little children
All the children of the world
Every color, every race
They are covered by his grace
Jesus loves the little children of the world.

Jesus loves the little children
All the children of the world
Every country, everywhere
Jesus hears their every prayer
Jesus loves the little children of the world.

I'm working on coming up with a third verse, but it might be a while before I get it just right. I'll just keep singing to my baby. He doesn't mind.

What do you think? Any songs you know from childhood that should be revamped for today's kids?

1 comment:

Kristen [Teamfuest] said...

I like your version! Isn't it so crazy when we start revisiting some of the songs or books, or even movies that we grew up with, we realize there are things in there we don't want to pass on? Haha! Good for you for being inventive :) (And I love that you sing to him all day long! With you and Brad as his parents I'm sure he will have music running thick through his veins!) :)