Variations on School House Rock

Sometimes when I am helping Gwen with her spelling homework, I give her little spelling tips, sometimes in the form of jingles that I learned as I was getting my undergraduate degree in Sesame Street and Electric Company. OK, I guess I didn't quite get my degree in PBS Educational programs, but I might have if my brother hadn't destroyed the TV set when I was six. All the same, some of those jingles are memorable, as is evidenced by the fact that Xavier counts on his fingers to identify the letter "C", but he can sing, "T-I-O-N, shun Shun SHUN SHUN, T-I-O-eN, shun, Shun, SHUN, SHUN!" with the best of them.

Anyway, seeing how helpful these little jingles can be, I bought the kids a CD of some of the classic School House Rock songs that they used to play on Saturday Morning cartoons back in the 70s and 80s. In order to save myself the embarrassment of being caught singing, "To use when your happy -- HOORAY! -- or sad -- Awww -- or frightened -- EEEK! -- or mad -- RATS!" in my cube at work, I also got "Schoolhouse Rock Rocks" which has a group of contemporary artists doing their interpretations of some of these classic tunes.

One of the songs on this "Schoolhouse Rock Rocks" album is a rap version of "Mr. Morton." I admit, I am not familiar with the original song, but you don't need to be to get the gist of it:

Mr. Morton is the subject of my story; what the predicate says, he does.
Mr. Morton is the subject of my story; what the predicate says, he does.

Actually, the concept is kind of cool, but this chorus gets repeated OVER and OVER through the song. Xavier doesn't even know what a predicate is, but he has this song down pat.

For example, this evening at bedtime, I was tickling him on the floor and I had the inane chorus of this song running through my head. Teasing him, I said, "Mr. Xavier is the subject of my story ..."

"... and what the predicate says, he doesn't do!" Xavier chimed in.

Ah, it is so true.

Of course, by the time we had him tucked in, Xavier had created a few alternate lines, like "Mr. Xavier is the subject of my story, what the Republicans say, he doesn't do" and "Mr, Xavier is the subject of my story; what the president says, he doesn't do." Well, at least I have to agree with his political inclinations.