It's not news that the world of children's songs is a dangerous, morbid world; anyone who has ever been lullabized by the story of the baby placed at the top of a tree for some inexplicable reason, only to hear of that innocent infant's windblown crashing to earth, knows all too well that the world has always been filled with unfit parents and other perils.

Perhaps no song better illustrates the poor parenting theme in children's music than "Five Little Ducklings." In the song, five little ducklings go over the hill and far away. When Mama Duck says quack quack quack, only four come back. Very likely this should cause concern for a mama, but not so this one. The next day, four little ducklings amble over the same hill. Quack quack quack. And only three little ducklings come back. While you and I might see a pattern developing here, the valium besotted Mama Duck the next day permits the remaining three to leave for the hill all alone, and guess how many heed duskfall's quack quack quack. That's right: two. You'd hope that some concerned neighbor might call Child Protective Services. But no. So the pattern continues until no duckies return home and Mama Duck has the gall, the gall, to be sad. Sad! She finally waddles her own lazy ass over the hill where her little ducklings are all congregated, presumably lost, cold and hungry.

Even ostensibly innocent songs can have troubling consequences. "Where is Thumbkin" is a wonderful teacher of digit names, but used without caution in a car, it can serve as a spark for road rage. Picture this: you're sitting in slow-moving traffic with your two year old in the car seat, protected from the relentless beating of the sun by tinted rear windows (the belt) and a window screen (suspenders). No matter the season, you have the windows up because you still haven't dealt with the fact that you're listening to "Toddler Favorites" on the same stereo that used to blast Led Zeppelin IV. The guy in the car to your right is a little steamed because of the traffic. He fails to notice you singing "Here I am, here I am" just before you turn to little Timmy in the backseat and make the hand sign in response to "Where is Tallman?" All he sees is a totally decontextualized finger gesture, and all of a sudden, the road rage horse is out of the barn.

You listen to Eminem or Fifty Cent and your guard is up, so you can tune in more easily to the messages that might preset danger to you or your children. But the next time you slip Raffi into the CD player, you better turn on your radar, 'cause trouble's on the next track.

What the hell. While I'm here, I may as well post this - it's not like I need to have a final thought on Yeats anyway. So...

A Coat
William Butler Yeats
1916

I made my song a coat
covered in embroideries
out of old mythologies
from heel to throat;
but the fools caught it,
wore it in the world’s eyes
as though they’d wrought it.
Song, let them take it,
for there’s more enterprise
in walking naked.

Among the things I like: the poem starts with a specific statement that’s true, a statement that exists in full in the first line, and in fuller in the first four lines. “I made my song a coat.” Yeats cloaked himself in his work. Even if you’re not looking for a metaphor, you still accept that, yeah, it’s true, this poet did wrap himself up in his art. And the literal truth of the first statement progresses through the first quatrain – a cursory reading of the titles of Yeats’ work from any Yeats anthology will show you that Irish and Greek myth play a significant role in his career. And if I can recall my first reading, I didn’t even notice the embroideries/mythologies rhyme (much less the world’s eyes/enterprise rhyme). Anyway, in that small, seemingly straightforward sentence, Yeats says something simple but powerful about his relationship with his work.

The following three lines, held together by the caught it/wrought it rhyme, remind me of James Joyce’s comment about his novel Finnegan’s Wake, published after the heavily analyzed Ulysses, when he said of the obscurities he deliberately put into it something like, “This ought to drive the scholars crazy.” These contemporaries shared the same problem, that they wrote what they were compelled to write, only to have academic after academic say what it meant with the authority that comes from the teacher/student relationship. This must be frustrating – imagine the number of writers who wish they had a similar problem.

Anyway, the song ends with a “the hell with it,” a surrender to the idea of controlling only what a man can control. But the way it ends, with the opening of the coat and the ending of walking naked, demonstrates the apparently effortless control Yeats asserts over the work. In short, the poem’s simplicity in language and imagery, as well as the clarity established by the rhyme, make this one of my Yeats favorites, along with “The Scholars,” a poem that seems to continue the theme established in “A Coat,” and “Politics.”

Screed is a good word. Perhaps I should write short screeds. But seriously, shiver my timbers if I don't start writing about some of the literature I like, even if the easiest way is to recycle existing thoughts about "An Irish Airman Foresees His Death" or Paul Muldoon's "The Grand Conversation." Speaking of Paul Muldoon, here's a fun word: emphysemantiphon. Makes a body wish he were smart enough to go to Princeton.