KidTunes: Golden Kids Rules Speaks to Everyone
“We’ve been talking about Christmas / And what it really means.
If you don’t care about others / Well, it don’t mean beans.
So, if you didn’t get enough of that Christmas stuff / And you’re sad little girls and boys,
Come on over / You can come and play with our toys.”
Chip Taylor wrote the most awesome song to come out of the 1960s, “Wild Thing.” Chip Taylor & The Grandkids, a group comprised of Taylor and his granddaughters, recently released Golden Kids Rules. Although it is not a Christmas album, it includes the loveliest Christmas song written in many years, “You Can Come & Play with Our Toys.” “We’re just talkin’ about those who / Santa just can’t get to. If Santa just can’t find you / Don’t worry ‘bout that. And if you didn’t get a blast of that Christmas stash / Let’s get together and make some noise Come on over / You can come and play with our toys.”
“You Can Come & Play with Our Toys” was inspired by a Christmas when Taylor and the kids “filled several duffle bags with clothes and little gifts and passed them out to homeless people living on the streets of New York City.” It reminds them “how good it feels to help those less fortunate.” This spirit of caring and respect is repeated throughout the songs collected on Golden Kids Rules, released by Smithsonian Folkways.
With songs celebrating a marriage in the family, a child’s poem, baseball, and a possum-hunting dog, Chip Taylor & The Grandkids offer something different, something gentler, to music especially for kids and their families. Taylor does, indeed, sound like a grandfather (“Pepa”) and his voice conveys the security offered by someone who truly cares. In an unusual departure for a children’s album, Golden Kids Rules includes a song about death, “Quarter Moon Shining,” that is tenderly reassuring. (“When old dogs die, Pepa, Where do they go, where do they go?...When old dogs die, children, just like you and I, they go to heaven.”).
Themes of respect for all living things and for the planet itself suffuse Golden Kids Rules, as the group offers songs about doing the right thing (“Did You Hear What Jennifer Did?”), individualism (“Big Ideas”), and responsibility (“Kids to Save the Planet”). Golden Kids Rules is a kids album with a conscience; not just about fun, it’s fun just the same. Click here to hear the title track; sample every track here.
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