Around a year ago, Andrew Thelen (the person who graciously
\ndonated his own personal Web space for “The Daily Vault” to get its
\nstart) wrote to us and asked us to review an album he had given his
\nson as a child –
\nPeter, Paul & Mommy<\/i> from ’60s folk icons Peter, Paul
\n& Mary.<\/p>\n
I remembered the album well – I had a copy when I was a boy, and
\naccidentally broke it after years of service. But for some reason,
\nI kept forgetting about his review request – until I received an
\n“anonymous” package in the mail containing a new cassette of the
\nalbum. (Subtle, Andrew… I got the hint.)<\/p>\n
It had been well over 20 years since I last listened to
\nPeter, Paul & Mommy<\/i>, and a lot of the songs sound
\nsignificantly different than the way I remembered them, but this
\nalbum has lost none of its magic, despite being released in
\n1969.<\/p>\n
The theme of the album was supposed to be Peter Yarrow, Noel
\n“Paul” Stookey and Mary Travers singing children’s songs to
\nchildren who were in the studio with them – a move which was kind
\nof like playing catch with a live hand grenade. You never knew if
\nthe kids were going to burst out in the middle of a performance
\n(which I’m sure happened, and was edited out), or if the kids were
\ngoing to sing off-key (which does happen on occasion, but kids
\ndon’t have perfect pitch).<\/p>\n
But I listen to
\nPeter, Paul & Mommy<\/i> differently at the age of 27 than I
\ndid at the age of five. For one thing, many of the songs on this
\ntape don’t seem like children’s songs. “Leatherwing Bat” sounds a
\nlittle complicated for young minds to grasp, but is a pretty song
\nwith Irish overtones throughout the number. “Christmas Dinner” is
\nanother song that I think would go right over little ones’ heads –
\ncripes, it took me over
\n20 years<\/i> to figure out what this song was about. (What can I
\nsay, I’m a slow learner.)<\/p>\n
A couple of things now surprise me about
\nPeter, Paul & Mommy<\/i>. First, the song order has been
\nshuffled. I distinctly remember the record ending with “Day Is
\nDone”; if anyone actually has the vinyl, I’d be interested in
\nre-discovering the exact order of songs. Second, the kids aren’t
\nreally used that much – I counted five songs of the twelve on the
\ntape. Some of them, like “Puff (The Magic Dragon)” and “Going To
\nThe Zoo” (hey, now
\nthere’s<\/i> an idea for what to do with my daughter on Father’s
\nDay!), make perfect sense, but especially if the kids weren’t on
\nevery song, one wonders why they were used on “Day Is Done” and not
\non “Mockingbird”. (For that matter, why
\nweren’t<\/i> the kids used on all the songs?)<\/p>\n
This all, however, is nitpicking to the nth degree. The
\nperformances on
\nPeter, Paul & Mommy<\/i> are incredible. “The Marvelous Toy,”
\na song that occasionally sees airplay around Christmastime, is
\nstill a beautiful song, while the performances of such cuts as “I
\nHave A Song To Sing, O!,” “It’s Raining” (another one that would
\nhave been great for the kids) and “Puff (The Magic Dragon)”, if
\nheard at the right time, could bring tears to your eyes. No matter
\nwhat you thought of their politics (or if you bought into that
\nbullshit of “Puff” being a pro-drug song), Peter, Paul & Mary
\nwere top-notch folkies.<\/p>\n
In a sense, though, this album now sounds too polished. I don’t
\nremember the record sounding as crisp and flawless, or some
\nperformances stretching as long as they do here. It might be a
\nstrange thing to say, but I’d almost prefer this on vinyl, if only
\nto preserve a roughness that kids don’t realize will eventually
\ncreep into their lives. (With the vast amount of vinyl in the
\nPierce Archives, at least my daughter will know what a record once
\nwas.)<\/p>\n
Despite being almost 30 years old,
\nPeter, Paul & Mommy<\/i> is still a great record to start
\nyour kids out with, and is one that might instill a love of music
\nwith them… that is, unless your toddler is listening to Puff
\nDaddy or Green Day instead.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27689,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[7433],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-39066","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-peter-paul-mary","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39066","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39066"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39066\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27689"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39066"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=39066"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=39066"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}