Jack Johnson’s songs for kids

I hope that you recall Jack Johnson and his wonderful album In Between Dreams from a year ago. Johnson is a surfing legend, who found out he could sing and write songs after he was nearly killed while riding a big one. This discovery resulted in the albums Brushfire Fairytales and On and On and the hit songs The Horizon Has Been Defeated, Symbol in My Driveway and the Grammy nominated Do You Remember from In Between Dreams.

Johnson creates an easy-to-like kind of pop music. It is a mix of folk, rock, jazz and native Hawaiian that evokes the balmy warmth of the sun on tropical beaches where grow lots of coconut trees. The thought of those palms swaying to his music must have been what prompted the producers of the movie Curious George to ask Johnson to compose and write for the score. As most kids out there surely know, Curious George is a monkey and monkeys like to climb coconut trees.

Curious George is portrayed as insatiably curious about everything because he wants to learn and is always eager to help. To portray this in his music, Johnson wrote his typical ballads about simple joys and little heartaches. He retains the easy-going, beach bum vibe he is best known for throughout. And as usual, his singing conjures up images of summer days on the beach where naps on a swinging hammock alternate with dips on the water. The only difference this time around is there is the adorable Curious George peeking into everything and getting his hands into anything and landing into loads of trouble.

There is always something childlike in the music of Johnson so I suppose that working on the animated Curious George movie must have been a lark. The songs are the simplest ever and were written for Curious George’s little followers. That means the three to seven year olds. The theme song which he titled Upside Down is actually about looking at the world from every angle. Caring for friends is portrayed with Wrong Turn while helping to save the world is what The Three R’s Reduce, Reuse and Recycle is about.

Every song imparts a lesson and I am happy to tell parents out there that the music is also very relaxing and should result in some quiet moments from George’s equally curious fans. The other songs included are Broken, People Watching, Talk of the Town, Jungle Gym, We’re Going to be Friends, The Sharing Song, Lullaby, With My Own Two Hands, Questions and Supposed to Be.

Before I forget, the title of the album is Sing-Alongs and Lullabies for the Film Curious George. The performers are Jack Johnson and Friends.

Music Inspired by Da Vinci

Anything with the name Da Vinci sells these days. There is no existing copyright to the name of the great Renaissance master so anybody can use it for free as long as they avoid using the word Code. If they do then they might be judged guilty of copyright infringement on the work of Dan Brown whose novel The Da Vinci Code is currently the biggest selling book and most talked about motion picture all over the world.

So we now have more books available about Leonardo Da Vinci than there had been in recent times. There are Da Vinci tours to visit the Louvre, Westminster Abbey and other places mentioned in the book. We have Da Vinci games about the inventions and mathematical propositions of the Italian genius. A few days ago, there came a CD entitled Music Inspired by Da Vinci with the subtitle Dedicated to Womankind.

This is not the soundtrack of the motion picture that stars Tom Hanks. This was produced by a Dutch producer and songwriter named Jan Kisjes and is made up of his own compositions. Although nothing in the credits says the songs were inspired by the novel, this is still very obvious in the album cover which has images of the Mona Lisa and the Vitruvian Man and in the titles and themes of the songs.

Anybody who has read Brown’s The Da Vinci Code will instantly recognize titles like Eglise Saint Sulpice, The Sword and the Chalice, Le Poeme de la Croix Gemmee, Crux Gemmata. Roslin Chapel, La Femme es Sacree and The Story of Sarah. The novel says that Sarah was the name Mary Magdalene gave to her daughter who grew up in France where she fled after the Crucifixion.

So all of you out there who have become caught up in the raging Da Vinci fever, this is an album you might not want to be without.