Ros and Robbie

[przed]

Ros will frequently get on a kick where she wants to hear the same song constantly so she can learn the lyrics. Fortunately, she has so far always done this with songs I like. (Mancunian Way, Wooden Boat.) Her fave of the moment is Robbie Williams' Let Me Entertain You.

Leaving aside the wisdom of letting an eight-year-old listen to a song with the line "shake your ass, come over here," (hey, at least there's no f-bomb in this one) it's led to the occasional interesting question.

Ros: Why does he say "Little Bo Peep has lost his sheep?
Me: Because Robbie likes to play with gender....Do you know what gender is?
Ros: Yeah.

Half an hour later.

Ros: Why does Robbie like to play with gender?
Me: That's a good question. ::launches into a discourse on the frequency of cross-dressing in English culture::

Comments

[halotolerant.livejournal.com]

Heh! *g* That is a song full of vocabulary, for sure. I like to think of Ros learning the wonders of twisting expectations from Robbie songs. I was a bit older than her when I was listening to them as new stuff and thinking a lot, but I remember how radical he seemed at the time in amongst pop compilations which were otherwise all Spice Girls and Britney et al.

[przed.livejournal.com]

The first day Ros decided she was going to learn the words and I had it on repeat in the car, she stopped during the third time through and yelled "This is like a tongue twister!" But she cracked Candy pretty easily and that's at least as fast, though possibly doesn't contain as many difficult words.

All in all, I'm enjoying the process. *g*

[halotolerant.livejournal.com]

Robbie's songs really do have the vocal dexterity of rap. He's very good with language and seeing how to fit words together. That said, I don't think I know all the words to half his songs because I'm bad at hearing them distinctly - I know how 'Let Me Entertain You' goes, but not necessarily what he's saying all the time! *g*

[przed.livejournal.com]

Robbie's love of rap definitely shows in his lyrics. There are definitely songs of his where I struggle with the lyrics, but there's now only one line in Let Me Entertain You that I completely muck up, and I'm finally at the stage where I can sing it all unaccompanied. Benefits of having an obsessive eight-year-old constantly listening to it. *g*