Evil songs (CAC Edition)
Created | Updated Apr 15, 2006
There are some songs that you should definitely teach neither you children, or anyone else within range, however much they may be pleading to be taught a song. They may not seem to anyone other than me to be the source of any of the world's great tragedies but there is a dark heart concealed within many a childish rhyme. I'd write about more, but I've not got the time.
The Ugly Duckling
The Ugly duckling is a deeply unpleasant song. For those of you who don't know it (and you may consider yourself lucky- you may wish to consider looking ahead to the next sentence to avoid being corrupted) it tells us the tale (doh!) of an ugly duckling 'with feathers all stubby and brown' The other birds, sneering, as birds of this ilk clearly do, at the ugly ducking, told him to get out of town. Out he got, as far, at least, as a 'lonely patch of reeds' (that might not be verbatum but I don't care). All was, seemingly, resolved the following winter with the arrival of a group of swans who noticed that our duckling (having been a signet all along- these ducks being stupid as well as mean)was now a swan, and looked rather swish. Rehabilitated into society, the swan was now happy, but fails (typical swan) to notice that this song still clearly condones people who are ostricised just for being ugly ducklings. But it gets much worse
Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer
This song has all the awfulness of it's predecessor and much more. They story is simillar- Rudolph is a reindeer with a red nose. Not much to work with, you would have thought, but sufficient, apparently, for his fellow reindeer to ostracise and bar him from 'any reindeer games' which must have been a blow. It's gets worse rather than better. Santa arrives at this point and, rather than telling the other reindeer to buck their ideas up (he's santa, he talks like a Baden-Powell scout master) he exploits Rudolph's nose to guide him through the fog. The Reindeer are cruel, and that's to be expected, but this is just... cynical. Santa's shameless exploitation of a dumb and persecuated animal makes you feel like giving your presents back (well, most of them). It cetainly puts you off ever sharing this shameful man's influence with future generations.
Eeny meen miney mo
Eeny meen miney mo catch a monkey by his toe. Ever sung that? I have. It's not a very nice thing to do to a monkey, that's point number one. If he hollers let him go. That's mean. Incidentally, I don't know a great deal about monkeys, but I'd be willing to bet that if he was garbbed by his toe the likely first course of action would be not so much to holler as to bite. I imagine you'd catch something quite nasty.
Eeny meen miney mo catch a n-i-g-g-e-r by his toe. Ever sung that? I haven't. Firstly, I'd like to say that I don't intend to get involved in the debate about whether or not repeated use of the word n-i-g-g-e-r disempowers racists because it detracts from the point (and I cannot believe that the word is being used affectionately in this instance) so I shall just refer to the victim from this point onwards. It's not a fundamentally racist song, I concede. It doesn't specifically judge the person for being black. It does clearly advocate bullying of the victim though (let's ignore the notion that this is a thinly veiled lynch-mob allergory for the time being shall we?) which is bad enough.
So this is the worst of the three. To make a jokey rhyme out of casual racism is nasty enough. But to them turn it into an innocent-sounding, monkey-abusing children's song is just weird. It has to go.
And now
So that's my three for now. In may think of more, I may not. In any instance, I'd be intruiged to hear whether anybody else has any they'd like added to the list.
