I’ve been digging out children’s song collections, some which go back over forty years, after being asked to teach KS3 music at the school I work part-time in. Although I’ve taken the odd music lesson over the past few years my main subjects have been DT and Science so, despite my extra-curricular preoccupations, I need plenty of preparation. As part of these researches I came across ‘Leave Your Sleep’, a double CD and book by Natalie Merchant, which includes 26 poems written for or about children that she has set to music. The quality of the work, both the book which includes biographies of the poets and the musical arrangements, is extremely high and often delightful. Some of the songs I may use at school, especially the more light-hearted ones including some nonsense rhymes by Edward Lear and e.e.cummings, etc.

One of the poems, ‘The King Of China’s Daughter’ by Edith Sitwell, has also been set to music by myself, though I added some extra lines to make it more of a story and also doubled up some others to produce a chorus. I also used this device on a couple of other poems; ‘A Ship Sails up to Bideford’ by Herbert Asquith (the son of one-time Liberal Prime Minister) and ‘The Scarecrow’ by Michael Franklin (not to be confused with poems of the same title by Walter de la Mare and Khalil Gibran. The one by Gibran is a little gem, by the way:

Once I said to a scarecrow, ‘You must be
tired of standing in this lonely field.’

And he said, ‘The joy of scaring is
a deep and lasting one, and I never tire of it.’

Said I, after a minute of thought,
‘It is true; for I too have known that joy.’

Said he, ‘Only those who are
stuffed with straw can know it.’

Then I left him, not knowing
whether he had complimented or belittled me.

A year passed, during which the scarecrow
turned philosopher.

And when I passed by him again I
saw two crows building a nest under his hat.