Sometimes I remember a song from childhood really, really well, except for maybe a word or two.
It can be frustrating because, growing up as I did before the internet or anything digital, it’s not always easy to find information about old books and/or songs online.
Which brings me to this particular song which has been going round in my brain for several days. The lyrics go something like this:
Many million years ago, when dinosaurs were,
All the mattresses that people had the floors were.
Many million years ago, hey donnie day down,
Children never went to bed they simply lay down.
I absolutely loved this song as a child. For one thing, it has a lovely melody (sorry I can’t easily demonstrate it for you), but I also appreciated the tongue in cheek quirkiness of it.
However, I’m not entirely sure about the “hey donnie day down” part, so a while back I started trying to find it online to see if I had it right or not. The problem is that I remembered the Maurice Sendak illustrations and searched for a “Where the Wild Things Are” songbook, obviously with no success.
Something brought it to my mind again the other day, so I did some more searching and — lo and behold — I found it! It was a songbook of lullabies and night songs, illustrated by Sendak, but with music by Alec Wilder.
Now I can’t wait for it to arrive, so I can play it again on the piano while singing along — knowing I have the correct lyrics!