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Sesame Street. The Muppets.  So much comes to mind when you hear these names. An array of hilarious characters that were with us through our childhood.  Making us laugh, dance, sing and just enjoy life.  It’s no secret that adding muppets to anything automatically makes it awesome.  This is evident in the countless CD’s they’ve released consisting of muppets singing normal people songs, or the list of classic stories that have been redone starring them ( A Muppet Christmas Carol!).  But just this once, and I swear to you this will be the only time you will ever be asked to do this, lets NOT consider the muppets in order to appreciate true genius at the core…Sesame Street music.

I was first prompted to listen to Sesame Street music out of context by my good friend, Charlie. He had this documentary on the man behind the music, Mr. Joe Raposo, and one night we sat down and decided to watch it. I was a little skeptical at first as to why we would want to watch a special on Sesame Street music. In my head, they were just silly kid songs that accompanied a number of great muppet skits.  Boy, was I wrong.  This documentary featured multiple clips of Mr. Raposo perfoming these songs himself on piano, and that’s when I realized how amazing they actually are. There are two songs that I want to discuss in particular, and I’m sure you know them…”It’s Not Easy Bein’ Green” and “Sing!”

It’s Not Easy Bein’ Green

We’re all familiar with this reflective masterpiece, sung by none other than the infamous, Kermit the Frog. When listening to a little green frog with a hilariously unique voice, it’s kind of hard to look past it and really appreciate the songwriting.  For this reason, it wasn’t until I heard a cover by Ray Charles that I was able to finally understand it. First of all, what an amazing melody.  It’s hard to hear that song and not walk away humming it. It’s short, yet as long as it needs to be. What really captures my attention, though, are the lyrics.  Mr. Raposo wrote this song specifically for Kermit to sing, and it is a very funny subject matter.  But looking at it closely, its message is one that people try to communicate so often…love who you are and don’t try to be different. Remember that these songs are written for kids, and it makes me happy to know that Mr. Raposo was able to teach them this lesson without being upfront and preachy about it.  Instead, he used a loveable character (Kermit) to get the message across to those children, and as I’ve come to realize lately, adults as well.

When green is all there is to be
It could make you wonder why,
But why wonder, why wonder?
I am green and it’ll do fine,
It’s beautiful!
And I think it’s what I want to be.

Sing!

This became a sort of anthem for Sesame Street.  They often had a number of different guests perform the song, and on the Joe Raposo documentary, there was a performance in which every sesame street character sang a line or two in his memory. Once again, Mr. Raposo had written an infectiously catchy tune for children to sing along to, as prompted by the lyrics.  There is no doubt that this song went, and may still, go straight to the hearts of all of those who grew up with Sesame Street.  But Joe is not only telling us to sing, he is urging us to be ourselves, regardless of what others may think.

Sing!
Sing a song!
Make it simple,
To last your whole life long.
Don’t worry that it’s not good enough
For anyone else to hear.
Just sing!
Sing a song!

These well written songs are hard to take seriously when they are featured on a show like Sesame Street, being sung by talking frogs and giant yellow birds.  But I urge you to look behind the visual, and appreciate the audio.  Take some time and look up a few covers to really hear and enjoy them. I think you will find that these songs are some of the most beautifully written pieces of music you will hear. I’ve included an acoustic cover of “Sing!” that I found on YouTube to get you started.  It is done by a guy with the screenname, danielhassixstrings.

Go ahead and dive back into your childhood.  I think you will find it just as enjoyable now as you did back then.

Noel

Posted via email from Project Nodajo

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Oh wow! My favourite musician, Andrew Bird is working on a soundtrack! That’s definitely going to be my favourite soundtrack EVER!

But let’s start at the beginning.
Chicago based, multi-instrumentalist, melodymaster and very handsome person Andrew Bird is working on a variety of projects, including a soundtrack.

Mr. Bird released ‘Noble Beast’ earlier this year and  that album was actually pretty succesful (reaching nr. 12 in American charts). He has revealed that he’s currently working on three different projects, at least that’s what he told BBC 6Music. He claimed that he is attempting to finish the soundtrack to a forthcoming film named ‘Norman’, it’s a high school dramedy. ‘It could do quite well,’ he told 6 Music News. ‘It’s got a fairly well known cast and it’s really well written and everything. It is more of a drama, it tackles high school drama without being lame. This is the first legitimate full length film that I did. I had the monitor of the film in the studio and I’m playing. It’s a lot of work. I don’t know if I ever want to do it again.’

He also revealed that he’s working on a set of new songs, including one named ‘Lusitania’ after a stricken passenger ship. ‘I’m using different naval incidents that drew the US into conflict, like the sinking of the maine and the Lusitania is a metaphor for a wounded relationship or something,’ he explained. ‘It actually really works, but it took my like four or five years.’

Mr. Bird has also recorded a cover of the Kermit the Frog favorite ‘It’s Not Easy Being Green’(but not in french this time) for the upcoming tribute album Muppets Revisited. The album also features Weezer doing ‘Rainbow Connection’. And rumours say also My Morning Jacket tackle ‘Our World’ as well.

Also Andrew Bird added that he have been working in collaboration with a sculptor on a variety of new instruments. ‘I’ve been collaborating with this sculptor in Chicago who makes these horns that I play through – they are like speakers – to create a whole installation, a room full of these horns that are shaped like poppies, making loops that come out of different horns. It’s like an arboretum of sonic sculptures. It’ll be a travelling museum show. It’s just getting started,’ he said. (But that was actually quite old news.)

I hope he’s playing ‘Lusitania’ sunday!
(forgive me for this crappy YouTube version of the song, but this one has the best sound quality)

to an American icon.  The first episode of Sesame Street aired today in 1969.

A man landed on the moon; a little weekend music festival mushroomed into Woodstock. And a big yellow bird and his fuzzy friends took up residence on a street where the air is always sweet and the sky is always sunny.

The year 1969 was a busy one for big events, and 40 years later, lots of anniversaries are popping up at the intersection of history and pop culture. But when it comes to stirring whirlwinds of memories and before-and-after reflections, the debut of Sesame Street is at the top of the list.

As proof of that status, take this simple test: Try to imagine a world without Muppets.

“I think it’s all but impossible to do, but even if you can, what a sadder and drearier world that would have to be,” says Michael Davis, author of the best-selling Street Gang: The Complete History of Sesame Street.

“It’s not just an iconic piece of a past magical time; it’s still standing, growing, evolving. Here’s a show on a medium where things often don’t last 40 minutes, and it’s lasted 40 years and is still going strong.”

Amazingly episode 4187 airs today.

When episode 4,187 airs Tuesday (the official anniversary date), Sesame Street will be a show broadcast in 140 countries around the world and averaging 5 million viewers a week in the U.S. It holds the record for most Emmy Awards given to a single show with 122. But numbers don’t really tell the story. Plenty of children’s shows regularly score higher ratings than Sesame Street.

“If you see the other stuff, it reminds you of how great Sesame Street is just because they’ve been going for so long and they turn out a very high-quality product,” says Michael O’Malley. The 40-year-old Rowlett native grew up watching Sesame Street and continues to watch with his children.

All that “other stuff” is just another sign of Sesame Street ’s success.

In short Sesame Street is the gold standard when it comes to children’s programming.

Sesame Street recognized the power of the relatively new medium of television as a learning tool, with teachers and education researchers helping to create strategies for its on-air content.

“It’s still the gold standard in children’s television for its use of research and work with real children,” says Dr. Cynthia Schiebe, a New York-based developmental psychologist who specializes in media literacy. Henson and company made perhaps their most important breakthrough by making Sesame Street fun and smart, allowing all the lessons to flow from that.

It’s always been good entertainment first and good-for-you entertainment second, whether it was Bert and Ernie as an odd-couple comedy team, the Count as a silly-scary sophisticate or celebrities singing about this letter or rhapsodizing about that number. That 40-year procession of celebrities forms an encyclopedic timeline of pop culture fads and phases, from Carol Channing and Itzhak Perlman to Natalie Portman and Jack Black.

Michelle Obama adds her name to the list of first ladies visiting Sesame Street that began with Barbara Bush and continued with Hillary Rodham Clinton and Laura Bush. The current first lady visits in Tuesday’s episode to help the Muppets with a vegetable garden. Decades after Muppet star Kermit the Frog first sang about the difficulties of “being green,” this season will focus on nature and the environment. (Source: After 40 years, ‘Sesame Street’ still stands out – Dallas Morning News)

Here’s the “original” opening:

Here’s the 40th season opening:

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Photographed by Steve Woolf

::: sent from a stop on my travels :::

– License

Nothing could make me happier today…

Oh to be five (or four) again…?

I let Lexi watch a modern Sesame Street for the first time this afternoon.  She’s watched some of the older episodes (from the mid 1970s), but never a current one.   As far as I know, she had no idea who Elmo was (he was introduced more recently, and doesn’t exist in the classic Sesame Street episodes that we’ve watched.)  Her diapers feature various Sesame Street characters on them, including Elmo, but she called them all Bert.  By the end of the episode, she was asking for “more Elmo!”

What is it about that annoying, red furry monster that toddlers find so attractive?

Gervais + Elmo = Hilarity on ‘Sesame Street’

Very funny…

Yo, there’s some cool stuff on the internet.

More serious post to come soon, had to share this though.

Respect A Chris Brown Por Poner A Bailar A Elmo

M!

According to Michael Davis (author of Street Gang: The Complete History of Sesame Street), this excerpt was from a show aired a year after Will Lee, the actor who played the character Mr. Hooper, died.

Sometimes furries with home recorded Sesame Street VHS Tapes put their perversions to excellent use.

Would you date a furry scientologist?

All this talk of scientology all the time still has me wondering why science hasn’t kicked scientology’s ass for stealing its name.

Gosh they have such a bad ass symbol though…

But science is still the coolest thing ever.  How exciting would it be to have this levitating water on a dance floor?

Moreover, have you seen the new Star Trek Trailer yet??? Cause I watch it every morning and regardless of its amazing Trekkie + Mainstream appeal, I am still raw about the exclusion of William Shatner. Like WTF Paramount! We miss you JTK!

Ummmm… could this be Gunther’s bastard child? I want them to do a duet + video with multi-demographic euro-sex appeal.

VLog Sundays may just be a one time marketing innovation specifically designed to bring readers back every following Sunday in hopes of discovering a VLog Sundays post…

I wanted to listen to/blog about a new Dead Kids song called “Into the Fire” that was “reviewed” on NME.com… but I can’t seem to find the song anywhere.  Damn NME trying to be all indie all the time, I’m pretty sure laughing at NME is one of my preferred pastimes – and NME guess what?  You missed reporting on Noel Gallagher’s bowel movement this morning ya wankers!

Listening to Now: Ricardo Villalobos Fabric 36 (2007). Do people dance to minimal techno?  Would Ricardo play this set for a dance floor at Fabric?  I’m really curious about this.  If you know let me know.

[Don't ask, it's complicated.]

Cuppla things really…

First of all, Happy Birthday once again to our dear pal and number one Hearts fan, Barry.
Thanks a whole bunch to everyone who caught our brief set at the Fox show, a week last Friday. We were a little disheartened, what with being short one Matth* but you made it fun anyway, so cheers…

I think we may also owe you an apology… I don’t know why we thought it was a good idea to quaff such vast quantities of Rosé and then graduate to Absinthe but it happened anyway and by the time we took to the stage, we were all considerably less than sober (as you’ll soon see)!

For those of you who missed it, a cheeky (and somewhat incriminating) video of us performing Fleet Foxes’ White Winter Hymnal has recently materialised. Enjoy.

Ian
xo

PS – * – Is it wrong that when I thought about being sans Matth, the first thing that came to me was Minus the Bear? 

En wel een muziekale. Een lekker mopje muziek, verzorgd door onze vriendjes van Sesamestreet, Bert en Ernie. Ze zetten nog even een tandje bij. Dus, luistervinken,  speakertjes aan en snaveltjes toe!

Welcome one and all to kengel2go!! Hot One the heels of the re-release of apples iPhone, and the brain trust at Google Larry Page & Sergey Brin (pictured above) releasing the new Google G1 phone, we are proud to present kengel2go!! I am “2go” one half of this dynamic duo… me and my buddy kengel figured if nerds like those pictured above can parade around at multimillion dollar product unveiling on roller blades and still pull in 6 and seven digit salaries, then why the heck should we not have a place to act like autistic spazoids who are completely out of touch with reality!!

At Kengel2go you can read about all the happenings in the world from music and movie reviews to politics and entertainment, and everything in between. Opinionated yet honest we seek to bypass the social spin zone that has become everyday life and explore the world simply as what it is, A really F**ked up place!!

This is not sesame street people and the only big birds around here go for 15 grand or better… If you are picking up what i am putting down then slide me some skin you jive a$$ sucka!!! And Welcome To Kengel2go!!

-2go “The Gigolo”

A wonderful piece of nostalgia from YouTube and Sesame Street: How crayons are made. A classic! [via link]

VIEW

I love the muppets. I grew up watching Sesame Street and a host of other TV shows. But, the magical thing about Sesame Street (or the muppets) is that I still enjoy watching it now, even though I’m all of 24 years! Other TV shows I watched as a kid (Teenage mutant ninja turtles or Chipmunks) just don’t bring about the same levels of enjoyment as it did then.

Not so for the muppets. I love them as much as I ever did. I think its the music.

Andrea Bocelli and Elmo – Simply adorable!

No matter how old you are, there is one street we all now…  http://www.sesamestreet.org/home

this website is simply beautiful and the most fun i had this week visiting a beta website while testing the google chrome browser.