Our resident nursery rhyme connoisseur (Heather) gives it the thumbs up, her favourites being “Spida” (Incy-wincy spider) and “Wow you boat” (Row-row-row your boat). Her big sister is a fan too, demonstrating her enthusiasm for “the Irish dancing bits” by bounding around the kitchen like Michael Flatley. It’s more lively than “Old English Nursery Rhymes” without straying into frantic territory – a no-nonsense, well-executed nursery rhyme record with a good dose of Irish trad mixed in. If you’re looking for kids music with an Irish slant (and sung in a variety of undiluted Irish accents) then this might be for you.

(p.s. There’s also a good set of accompanying teaching notes for use with the CD in the classroom on The Speks own website)

Incey-wincey spider Miss Molly Sing a song of sixpence Row your boat The scarecrow

There’s a DVD too that comes with the CD with home-made-y animated/puppet videos for each song – they’re not slick, but they’re funny and good, and they help tie the letter shapes to the letter names.

I’m one of those people who once thought “elemeno” was a single letter so my favourite song on this is probably “LMNO”, but there’s lots of other highlights to choose from, like the whimsical organ-based instrumental “Rolling O” or “Flying V” with its little Cuban piano muntuno. Isabelle’s favourite is “E eats everything” in which all the letters have various food quirks, except for E, who eats everything. “That’s a really good song”, she says. “Yeah, well”, says I. “It’d be nice if you ate everything.” “Don’t be silly, Dad.”

Alphabet of Nations E eats everything Flying V Rolling O L M N O

Beethoven’s wig is long and curly and it’s white

Beethoven takes his wig off when he sleeps at night

Because it’s big

It’s very big

Beethoven’s wig! Is! Big!

… sung to the tune of Beethoven’s 5th, with full orchestral accompaniment. Yeah, yeah I know – it’s pure daft, but it never fails to make me grin and the longest tune takes less than two and a half minutes, so the joke never gets old. It’s made funnier still by the main singer singing in his normal voice while the others sing in “opera” voices.

I hadn’t really realised how catchy some of these tunes are – I suppose without words to sing you’re less likely to sing them in the shower, but now I have words you’ll hear Verdi and Liszt if you stand outside my bathroom door. The words have also attached the titles and composers to the tunes in my head for the first time, so when I hear them on the radio I’m not going “hmmm I’ve heard that before” but rather going “Aha! It’s Eine Kleine Nachtmusik!”

The music without the lyrics is on the CD too, and it’s a joy to listen too – well-recorded and played with relish. Classical music purists will probably dismiss this as a trivialisation of something serious and magnificent, but I love it, Niamh and Isabelle love it, and I bet Mozart would have loved it too.

5th Symphony – Beethoven Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 – Liszt Galop – Offenbach Sylvia – Delibes 1812 Overture – Tchaikovsky

I’ve always had a soft spot for nursery rhymes myself, and have often plundered them in my own songwriting even before we had kids, but even I’d be unlikely to sit and listen to this all the way through for pure enjoyment. I would, however, happily listen to half an hour of it – it’s well arranged and well performed, and it’s head-and-shoulders above most of its competition, avoiding the usual irritating mannerisms you find on nursery rhyme collections. Plus, out of all the nursery rhyme CDs we have, this is the one Heather means when she points at the CD player and shouts “IMES! IMES!”.

Girls and boys come out to play Jack and Jill Oranges and Lemons Humpty Dumpty Baa Baa Black Sheep

Isabelle’s class played a chorus of orphans. They shuffled onstage in their “orphanage-y” outfits, holding hands and blinking in the stage lights and looking tiny, to sing and do a kind of action dance during two of the songs. Really the experience was a bit overwhelming for Isabelle – she had sung the songs at home enough that Heather picked up the chorus of “Tomorrow” (singing “Tomowwo, onee a dee aweee” in her high chair), but on stage she spent half her time try to spot me and Niamh in the crowd, staring at the older girls and licking her lips over and over. She was still my favourite actor on the stage, of course, but I think she’ll enjoy it more next year.

This CD has become very popular in the house since. The big hit has been “The Hard-Knock Life” (you might know the chorus from the Jay-Z tune) which has knocked “Emmo dong” (“Elmo’s Song”, from Sesame St) off the number 1 spot in Heather’s most-requested-music list. “Daddeee! Had not IIIIFE!”, she says. Quite right too, it’s an absolute cracker. Other favourites are “Maybe” and “You’re never fully dressed without a smile”, and they’ve infiltrated themselves into mine and the kids’ consciousness to the extent that, at this stage, we’re starting to wreck Niamh’s head:

“Aaaargh! Guys! Please! It’s like I’m surrounded by the cast of Annie with you all breaking into song! Can’t you be quiet for JUST ONE MINUTE?”

It’s the hard-knock life Maybe You’re never fully dressed without a smile Tomorrow I don’t need anything but you

Normally I don’t get into music quickly – even stuff I end up loving will often take me 3 or 4 or 10 listens before I start to like it. Not so this CD – the first time I heard “Pieces of 8ight” I just couldn’t keep the smile off my face, it’s just so ridiculously up my street. I’m favourably disposed to seafaring and pirate-y stuff for a start, having worked as an oceanographer for a while and being, believe it or not, actually descended from pirates – according to my mother-in-law’s genealogical books the surname Parle comes from French pirates shipwrecked off south-eastern Ireland. There are other origin stories for the name, of course, but that’s the one I’m going with (wouldn’t you?). And as for the music, well, there’s a Russian-sounding melody and a xylophone and lots of “HEY!”s (Isabelle thinks it sounds like Gogol Bordello), so how can I resist? Isabelle loves it too – the first time I put it on she instantly got up and started dancing round the kitchen . And it’s got an amazing video, check it out:

The rest of the music is very diverse (Niamh thought it was a compilation at first) – there are other pirate-y sounding tracks like “Scallywag”, then there’s some Pogues-y traditional sea-shanty fare like “Weigh anchor” and then there’s rock’n'roll tunes like “Pirate party” and one real Flaming-Lips-style noughties indie rocker about a sea monster. The only misstep is yet another version of “Nellie the Elephant” (what is it with rock bands and Nellie the Elephant?) that doesn’t measure up to Mandy Miller’s original but the hilarious introduction to the song makes up for it. The rest is all great – really well-written party songs with really funny lyrics and interludes. I’d absolutely love to see them live, though being from the north-western US I don’t expect they’ll be setting their compasses for Ireland anytime soon. The album has achieved the ultimate accolade in my book – I’ve gone and learned two of the songs – so next time you’re at a party with me (not that I go to many parties these days) expect to hear me calling on myself to sing them.

Weigh Anchor Pieces of 8ight Pirate Party Scallywagg Sea Monster