Nick Drake - Not Your Average Children's Music

On my quest to avoid purchasing a Wiggles CD for my two year old I stumbled down the rabbit hole of modern artists moonlighting as children's musicians.

There are the obvious ones such as They Might be Giants and Barenaked Ladies. Both artists have some great kids albums available that will not make your ears bleed.

Ninjas - being one of my favs...



I recognize that I am exposing my son to these artists for my own sanity and musical snobbery, but it feels good to look outside the itsy bitsy spider box. I've burned him CD's with songs I've dug up on ITunes. I've also gone and thumbed through my old CD collection for anything that may fit for a "night night" CD. Coldplay, Nina Simone, Miles Davis being a few that seemed to fit the bill.

However, now that he is well into his two year old months, he has started developing an opinion on what he wants to listen to. Green Day in the car, no thank you. He'll tolerate top 40 pop, but only for a small amount of time. Though I hold the keys to the musical kingdom, he is really the one who dictates the playlist.

Each night before bed we put a CD on. I had a mellow Disney CD that seemed to soothe him as an infant. That CD was replaced by a Baby Einstein classical medley. Most recently the playlist has taken a surprising turn. For reasons unknown Nick Drake's Pink Moon has been in the CD player for the past few weeks.

It never dawned on me that my son was actually appreciting the music and not just letting the sounds fill the background before sleep. He's formed opinions-- "Nine" is how he refers to his favorite song (the track number on the CD display). He's memorized lyrics-- or rather made up what he understand the lyrics to be. And he asks me to hum Pink Moon songs at random times during the day. For all intensive purposes, my two year old is a Nick Drake fan.

This does not mean he will turn down a chance to sing Wheels on the Bus or Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. He's no fool and please, he's only two. Should he request Barney's Greatest Hits at some point in the future, I suppose I would have to give in. I would just be sure and look for the version that included the duets with Rhianna and produced by Jay-Z.

~Davina