Brush off those imaginations and have a listen to Shel Silverstein’s Underwater Land. Think about a land where the stars are starfish, and the skies are green, where you never have to wash your face and hands. This delightful recording won the 2003 Parent’s Choice Foundation Gold Award. Pat Dailey, legendary Key West singer, and recorder of thirteen albums brings life to Silverstein’s words. And Silverstein jumps in, too. Pat Dailey has a marvelous warm voice. Their fun comes through the recording. I just know they had a great time producing it.
All the songs are based on the ocean, fish, and being underwater. The Land Shark song may be a little worrisome for very young children. It’s about a shark who decides to swim on land because he’s starving in the water and “there’s fresh kids on the land”. But it ends with a really great message “Just ‘cause somethin’ ain’t been done – don’t mean it can’t be did”. There’s also great advice on not swimming in the sauna with the piranhas.
The CD has plenty of silliness, and irreverence, just like we’d except from Shel Silverstein. The songs have all sorts of unexpected twists, goofiness, and some grossness like slippery, juicy, mushy fish guts. Another song, Found Flounder, is about forgetting to take the fish for show and tell. Three weeks later it works for “show and smell”.
It’s a treat to hear Silverstein’s poetry set to music and to be able to sing along. A thirty-two page booklet is included with all the lyrics and some illustrations, too. The music is nicely done by some of Nashville’s finest musicians. They play a great bluesy and jazzy sound.
These aren’t the kind of songs I’d want to listen to on a daily basis, but they would be great for sick days, or long trips in the car. I just know they’d do wonders for grumpy children, and adults, too.
You can give the songs a sample listen here.
Also See:
Arthur and Friends: The First Almost Real Not Live CD