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Top of the Scale

from The Wondarium: Songs For Kids by Jeni Hankins

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    The Wondarium started with a dream. I dreamed I was combing the beach for shells with my friend Alfred then a message came through the air from his wife Sarah. She said, "The Hippopotamus says bring her back some treasures."

    The next morning, I told my dream to Alfred over the telephone who later sent a chorus to me about Hippo. But before I'd heard his chorus, I'd written two verses about her as well. Once I listened to his chorus, I realized that my verses fit in with the rhythm of what he'd already written.

    Alfred and I call this ESP (extrasensory perception) songwriting. We write a lot of songs this way. Once we realized that both of us enjoyed making up songs that would suit children, we wrote another and another and another. We didn't think about them in a methodical way; they just dropped into our minds over the course of about a year.

    What makes these songs particularly for kids? Well there's something free about them, something nonsensical, and something playful. These are things which I always loved in songs I heard on Sesame Street or on Pete Seeger records.

    Not all adults are open to a song about the virtues of string, whereas kids seem to understand. But I was pleased to meet an adult after the first public performance of these songs who said, "I know you wrote that string song for kids, but I like it too." Perfect.

    Songs for kids, songs for free thinkers, songs for nonsense-lovers, songs for socks, songs for bears, boats, beans, and hippos.

    Come one, come all. Take your chances in The Wondarium.

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    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of String Unraveller Demo May 2021, The American Dream (Harlis and Freda), Voice Memo Demo, I'm Letting Go of You – Kitchen Single, The Wondarium: Songs For Kids, A Body is a Delicate House, I Fell Into the Fire, The Loneliest Snowman, I Fell Into The Fire – Limited Edition Handprinted, and 18 more. , and , .

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about

As Alfred and I wrote more and more songs for children, we began to envision them as a kind of musical. We wrote this song to give Owl and Rabbit another chance to play their xylophone in the musical and to speak about how they share the two mallets or beaters to get the job done.

lyrics

Top Of The Scale

Owl said we’ve got a problem.
We want to play xylophone –
with just two beaters between us,
can’t do it alone.

So if I take the low notes,
and you play above,
we can beat this together,
hand in glove.

If we play just a note at a time
we’ll get there in the end.
Play with me key by key,
won’t you please,
‘cause I’m glad you’re my friend.
Is our song just as wee as a bee
or as wide as whale?
Well, we’ll know that we’re done
when we come to the top of the scale.

We jumped through the Wondarium.
What strange folk have we met?
A friendly Hippo and Bear
who found his tea rather wet.

We spelled out a rainbow,
bathed poor Rose in a cup,
farmed our dreams until Roscoe
woke us all up.

It’s time to go home now.
Owl and Rabbit must sleep.
Can’t keep time with their beaters,
these creatures are beat.

You’ve been such a great audience.
We’d like to take you all home
with Hippo, Bear, Owl, and Rabbit
and their xylophone.

credits

from The Wondarium: Songs For Kids, released December 13, 2022
Music and Lyrics by Jeni Hankins, Lulu Wall Music, BMI,
and Alfred John Hickling, Sweet Pea Music.

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about

Jeni Hankins London, UK

Jeni Hankins grew up in the coalfields of Appalachian in Southwest Virginia among a family of miners, moonshiners, and journalists. Her writing pulls the grit, gumption, and keen sense of observation out of that heritage like drawing water from her grandmother’s well.

In every song, Jeni’s “true sense of place shines through – old as the hills, but brand new at the same time.”
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