Unsuitable for children

[imomus]

Momus is unsuitable for children. The entire world knows this. After all, the rascal described his 1991 album as "a record about sex for children", and there's even a karaoke track on Stars Forever (by Bill Hardy) entitled "Not Intended For Children" which goes:

With a Mini Moog
He can be lewd
Most of his songs
Are not intended for children

So when Belle and Sebastian's manager wrote to me from Scotland last week asking for a track for a children's album the band is putting together, I knew there'd be moral and semantic problems. Was this to be a record for or about children? Was it a record for real children or the idea of childhood propagated by parents and other adults — the wishy-washy "child in all of us", cute, neuter and filled permanently with wonder? Would Freud's findings on the sexuality of children be part of the record? Would some Edward Gorey spirit be tolerated?

I replied by sending the two child-related tracks on my new album, Otto Spooky: "Belvedere" and "Lute Score", with an accompanying letter saying in advance that I thought they would probably be unsuitable, "Belvedere" for its pervy lyrics ("touch other children's genitals for pleasure") and "Lute Score" for its references to violent video games ("shooting off the pop-up panda's head") and its zany out-of-control arabic-scale music.

Well, sure enough, a few days later I got an answer from the Belle and Sebastian team. The songs were indeed unsuitable, though "great". Subversive themes were already being slipped into the material coming in from such artists as Belle & Sebastian, Franz Ferdinand, Snow Patrol, Teenage Fanclub, Adam Green, Four Tet, Mum, The Fiery Furnaces, Gorky's Zygotic Mynci, The Divine Comedy, Rasputina, and Bert Jansch and Beth Orton. But the themes in my songs were not just subversive but "nightmarish".

Fair enough, I did warn you! I completely understand. Then again, I do think we underestimate the darkness of childrens' tastes, the perversity of their sense of humour, and their propensity to sex and violence. Children are not twee. In fact, when I see my sister's kids Robbie and Ellie, 12 and 8, beating each other up I'm rather shocked at the Clockwork Orangeness of it all. If one of them feels slighted, massive retaliation can be expected, in cold blood.

I've given a copy of Otto Spooky to my sister, and it's been played around the house, in front of the children, uncensored. My sister's first reaction was that she was enjoying the "underground theatre" elements of it (she's done her share of experimental rep), but a month or so later she told me "We all listened as much as we could but then I found myself unable to play it anymore. Without the context it seems to jar. I mean I would love it as part of a performance but I prefer easy listening in the flat."

So my sister's resistance is aesthetic rather than moral. After all, we were brought up as kids listening to the rock opera "Hair", with its ditties celebrating "sodomy, fellatio, cunnilingus, pederasty", and it hasn't done us any... well, not much... well, you know...

There's a review of Otto Spooky in the current edition of Uncut which kindly calls me "a laptop Tom Lehrer", which makes me wonder whether there would be any space on Belle and Sebastian's compilation for Lehrer's song "The Old Dope Peddler":

He gives the kids free samples
Because he knows full well
That today's young, innocent faces will be
Tomorrow's clientele

Thing is, if there are such dark adults out there, shouldn't we tell the dark children who'll one day become them?

Comments

[alandriscoll.livejournal.com]

Good kids make bad grown-ups.

[fufurasu.livejournal.com]

Interestingly, Lehrer did write for children. He composed songs for "The Electric Company" which are not as caustic but remain delightful. In "Tom Lehrer Revisited" you can find the songs "L-Y" on adverbs, and "Silent E" on, well, silent 'e'.

"He turned a dam into a dame/ But my friend Sam stayed just the same."

[mara1.livejournal.com]

Yup. I agree. To be honest i was a dirty little fiend when i was a child hehe. Feel sorry for children brought up on Barbie and Ken. They stare in out windows like Regan from the Exorcist dying to be let to climb up trees and make pies out of all sorts of strange and fetid concoctions. Set me free there caged little minds say - im sick of going round and round on my bike - want to get a bus to the forest down the road and run amuck. Yeah for ants and shit on sticks and kissing in the cupboard with your best friends brother hehehe

[leunnammi.livejournal.com]

also O-U (the hound song), S-N (snore sniff and sneeze) and N apostrophe T

[nickink.livejournal.com]

"If one of them feels slighted, massive retaliation can be expected, in cold blood.
"

This is perfectly true!

[badgerbag.livejournal.com]

How strange - what synchronicity as I was just contemplating tonight which wonderful but dark or inappropriate songs to teach my 5 year old. Lehrer among them as "the folk song army" and "pollution" have their moments of being suddenly inappropriate though i sang them at 4 or 5, along with National Brotherhood Week... the Masochism Tango... I contemplated various tracks by the Violent Femmes, the Judys, the Velvet Underground... Even Ziggy Stardust was well-hung, and making love, and lord knows whatall else. No one needs to listen to "Kiss Off" more than a shy 5 year old often rejected on the playground, when you think about it.

[turkishb.livejournal.com]

I was a pervy kid and I'm a pervy adult. I think I suffered years of repression from thinking perviness was a bad baddy shameful unnatural thing. I don't believe that anymore. Now I draw nudes, and go to sex shops, and browse porn, and anything else I please. I've come a long way from hiding under my covers miming sex with my little stuffed animals.

Kids are (and need to be!) aware of reality, and reality involves sex and violence. I don't think it encourages abuse by elders to suggest that kids should be allowed to explore (within the bounds of their own safety, etc.) sexuality on their own terms at their own pace. Laws of consent be damned. Toddlers like to fiddle themselves, kindergarteners play doctor, and adolescents have vaguely homoerotic oral sex experience -- all the more power to it.

Funny ironic note though, when my 8 year old brother learned the word impenetrable he applied that word to himself. I look at him and think, "I wonder if someday he'll stand in a sex shop in front of a display of anal sex toys, asking the attendent which lube goes best with silicone, like I did just yesterday?"

(Turns out: water based.)

[klasensjo.livejournal.com]

It would be nice if you could let go of the theories and those elaborate thoughts for a short moment and just write a short, clever, hummable song about...a frog. I think you'd be great at it. Sure, you could put in some dark, subversive message in there...fine, but it would be great to see you on TV in a multicolored jumpsuit among children singing about a happy frog. There could be big, fluffy pillows and true unadulterated happiness.

Ah whatever, who am I kidding? It's Momus, right?

Some of the most memorable children's songs and TV shows were dark, weird and sometimes miserable experiences. In Sweden, some people blamed Staffan Westerberg for destroying a whole generation with his, dark and wonderful "Vilse i pannkakan" (http://www.algonet.se/~zyron/barn/vilse.html) (Lost in the pancake). It was a work of genius.

I love Tom Lehrer, but I also adore things like Jonathan Richman's "Ice Cream Man"...

[klasensjo.livejournal.com]

I was thinking you could make something like this (rtsp://real-g2.musiclink.se/silence/Philemon_Arthur_and_the_Dung-Musikens_historia_del1_och_2/Philemon_Arthur_and_the_Dung-Ingenting_i_din_hjarna.rm).

[metatherian.livejournal.com]

In the early 80s my sister was told off by her teacher for bringing (my dad's) Ogden's Nut Gone Flake Small Faces LP in for playing at show & tell. I think the song was Lazy Sunday though it may have been Rene which seems more likely to offend, though I have a feeling it was Lazy Sunday as that was our favourite...of course it's approved songs that often wind up being disturbing to kids anyway - I was freaked out by "Puff the Magic Dragon" and also by "I love you tomorrow" in Annie.

[petit-paradis.livejournal.com]

just found a copy of adam phillips' 1998 essay "the beast in the nursery" in the library at my work ;-) must read it soon.

erik

Robin Hood

[(Anonymous)]

My 4 year old daughter has become quite a fan of the song Robin Hood from Otto Spooky. She goes so far as to request it by name in the car, and also before bedtime. Last night I was playing it for her, and my wife who was in the room happened to catch some of the lyrics, specifically, "don't let the bastards grind you down". Needless to say, she didn't think it was appropriate, and feared our child would repeat these words in public. My immediate thoughts were, 'why shouldn't this be our daughter's mantra?'. She's growing up in a competitive, capitalist, conservative, Christian society where bastards (the biggest and most obvious ones being our fearless leader and his cronies), seem to be constantly trying to suppress our freedoms and rights in the name of patriotism.

-Andy
New Hampshire, USA

[alisgray.livejournal.com]

Subversive themes were already being slipped into the material coming in from such artists as Belle & Sebastian, Franz Ferdinand, Snow Patrol, Teenage Fanclub, Adam Green, Four Tet, Mum, The Fiery Furnaces, Gorky's Zygotic Mynci, The Divine Comedy, Rasputina, and Bert Jansch and Beth Orton.

I'm trying to imagine how Mum could possibly have subversive themes. Perhaps if you sing in Icelandic instead you'll be within bounds?

Rasputina is usually pretty Edward Goreylike.

[klasensjo.livejournal.com]

Oh, Struwwelpeter. I used to see him all the time, painted to the ceiling of the school indoor swimming pool. Keep clean and sanitized little ones, or else... Such meanspirited "moral" tales, but fascinating nonetheless. I wrote about StruwwelPeter on LJ here (http://www.livejournal.com/users/klasensjo/2004/05/06/)

Gorey Kabinet of Kuriosities

[fascicle.livejournal.com]

Ye gods, I miss Gorey.

He revelled in the surprise exhibited when people found out he wasn't

(A) British
(B) dead

and now he is one of those.

Mugs with bewildered-looking Gorey children overwhelmed by huge tomes,
saying "So many books, so little time" and my _Amphigorey_, _A. Too_
and _A. Also_ collections just don't suffice.

Would Belle and Sebastian be happy recycling _The Cabinet of Kuniyoshi
Kaneko_? It seems to exhibit perfectly the lack of a need to wrap kids
in cotton wool (they all grow up to be fabulous occupants of the Chateau).

water-based

[fascicle.livejournal.com]

obviously not oily lube (rots latex and other toy materials) but for
anal play, wouldn't a solid (melting)lube be better than the gloopy
water-based ones like Probe (oh, and Astroglide, I suppose, but nothing
beats the grapefruit-seed formula of original Probe for gloopy simulation
of wet women).

[lepinktrash.livejournal.com]

i'm interested in this subject lately. i have just read 'les enfants terrible' by cocteau, and 'histoire d'oeil' by bataille.

i'm looking for others now, can you suggest something for me?

[encyclops.livejournal.com]

Somehow "What Are You Wearing?" always struck me as a terrific song for kids.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Well, Ian McEwan's first novel The Cement Garden is sort of in that school. In a different way, so is Les Onze Mille Verges by Apollinaire.

[sheppardzo-14.livejournal.com]

As a nine year old, i wrote fan mail to Lehrer...who was kind enough to reply. think i still have his letter. My parents had two or three of his albums, including the one illustrated.

[seanthesean.livejournal.com]

Having been teaching kids from 5-15 this year, i've come to see that it is the socially retarded children who grow up to be uptight bureaucrats who are twee, & it is the most socially advanced & intelligent children who are quite dipped in a world of complicated moral & political ambiguity, which they know full well. In the drawing class i teach, half of the comics the kids come up with are about poop & the other half about violence, & more often then not, the comics are about poop & violence.

We recently worked on a comic starring Osama Bin Laden, who called planes from the sky. These were then direct at anthroporphic World Trade Centers, who manage to swallow the planes. The World Trade Centers then pause to celebrate but then explode as the planes had explosives in them.

I find it nauseating that twee bands like Belle & Sebastian & Rasputina (who are contrived in a very particularly annoying way) just sort of side-step reality... i suppose Morrissey was a bit like that as well.

[seanthesean.livejournal.com]

absolutely. i always wonder how many people think books like "Lord of the Flies" & "A Clockwork Orange" are exagerations! Remove the social control of adults & children are immediately lacing up the bovver boots & pushing boulders onto one another.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Ah, Phillips is great! "I read psychoanalysis as poetry," he has said. "So I don't have to worry about whether it is true or even useful, but only whether it is haunting or moving or intriguing or amusing."

http://dir.salon.com/books/sneaks/1998/02/11review.html

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0FQP/is_4534_130/ai_74262743

[lepinktrash.livejournal.com]

merci
:+

[cutup.livejournal.com]

http://www.craigslist.org/pen/edu/72710653.html

[(Anonymous)]

Kids can be wicked and we all know it. That's why some stories by Roald Dahl are amazing, and both adults and kids love them. One obvious shady character is Willy Wonka in Charlie and the Chocolate factory, the whole story has a dark undertone.

Can't wait for the Tim Burton remake of the film!

Another good example of popular dark children’s story, The Moomins!

[(Anonymous)]

oops forgot to leave my name...


Jane

[33mhz.livejournal.com]

Wow, excellent quote! And totally spot-on as far as how I feel about it.

[33mhz.livejournal.com]

The reference to Clockwork Orange as regards the behavior of children is absolutely spot-on. For a while, the title of my journal was, "Children Love The Ultraviolence."

[lepinktrash.livejournal.com]

have you heard of the japanese scientist 'Masaru Emoto'.

http://www.positivehealth.com/permit/Articles/Sound_and_Music/heather64.htm

"Classical music produced beautiful crystals of slightly different colours. Healing music, a Tibetan mantra and folk music also produced beautiful crystals. Heavy metal music produced a pattern that looked like a crystal that had exploded into a thousand pieces. Japanese pop music produced ugly square-shaped crystals rather then the normal hexagonal ones.12
     Since our body is made up of 70% water, Masaru Emoto’s work demonstrates that we are constantly being influenced by the sounds around us and by the information stored in the water we consume.
"

[qscrisp.livejournal.com]

It looks like my image has been blocked. How embarrassing.

One of the Struwwelpeter stories that fascinates me the most is the one about the hunter and the hare. Really, what does it all mean? That one doesn't seem instructive, just bizarre.

[encyclops.livejournal.com]

I went to see Rasputina this week and absolutely no element of the music they performed could intelligently be called "twee." "Contrived" depends on your point of view, I suppose...Melora tells pretty much the same jokes every night of the tour between songs, which is about as contrived as scripted theater. Sidestepping reality...there again I suppose it depends on your reality. The songs about Howard Hughes, Rose Kennedy, medieval medicine, and the Donner Party all are based in reality, and less fanciful in their interpretations than Osama Bin Laden calling planes from the sky to send at anthropomorphic World Trade Centers.

If you just don't like them, that's up to you.

le roi de foret

[petit-paradis.livejournal.com]

michel tournier's king of the forest.
the russian art collective aes+f made photographs inpsired by tournier's novel. a group of children in white underwear in baroque palace halls (there was also one done with a group of kidsin white dress shirts in istanbul)

a later project of them concerns the representation of kids again:







I see momus hhas already moved on to another subject, so this probably mustard after dinner, but anyway, worth checking out.

Re: water-based

[turkishb.livejournal.com]

true, but i like the stringy quality of maximus, personally -- i like that it's textured like real girlcum. my only complaint with maximus is the taste. bitter! ewww. i don't like latex as much as silicone. i remember the first time i squeezed a silicone dildo i was reminded of the first time i squeezed the head of a penis.

[seanthesean.livejournal.com]

are you their publicist or something!?! i wasn't making some sort of great rational argument, merely stating my opinion, as you point out in your last sentence.

[encyclops.livejournal.com]

Fair enough -- I just wondered what your opinion was based on, as it didn't match up to the band I knew.

[nanotheband.livejournal.com]

Lovin' your journal, you've been added!