Simple simon says song lyrics10/13/2023 ![]() ![]() ![]() #Simple simon says song lyrics free#Feel free to swap out the gender if you’re singing to your little boy. And it provides a great lesson about life, i.e., “whatever will be, will be.” The catchy melody makes it easy to sing. ![]() It couldn’t be a better lullaby for a child who’s filled with wonder. Each verse of the song progresses through the life of an inquisitive child (in this case, the singer) who asks their mother questions about life and love. The song went on to win an Academy Award, became Day’s signature song, and was recorded by countless artists thereafter. “Que Sera, Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be)”įirst introduced in 1955, “Que Sera, Sera” was made famous a year later by Doris Day in Alfred Hitchcock’s film The Man Who Knew Too Much. Till by turning, turning we come ’round right. 'Twill be in the valley of love and delight. 'Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be,Īnd when we find ourselves in the place just right, 'Tis the gift to be simple, ’tis the gift to be free Thanks to Copland, we have this beautiful tune with touching lyrics that make the perfect lullaby. He later released the song in 1950 as part of a set in Old American Songs. “Simple Gifts”īased on a Shaker tune from 1848, “Simple Gifts” wasn’t very well known outside of the Shaker community until composer Aaron Copland used the melody in his Appalachian Spring, which premiered in 1944. The winds of night so softly are sighing, “Do it when SImon says and you willl never be out” - does this extend the promise of jouissance to the perfect masochist? Perhaps I need to rethink “1, 2, 3 Red Light” along these lines as well….It fills the sails of boats that are waiting, “Simple Simon” then is about that simple pleasure of total submission, which makes it far kinkier than “I’ve got love in my tummy.” Deleuze would perhaps note the fact that the winner of “Simon Says” is the person who submits most perfectly, not the person issuing the orders, who in this arrangement is deprived of all possibility for joy and reduced to performing rote bureaucratic functions. It promises a world of perfect order, in which one’s responses can be completely controlled, in which nothing is involuntary. This suits the subject matter of the song perfectly, as it’s about a game that glorifies the art of taking orders, that rewards blind obediance to authority, that structures one’s actions as someone else’s desire, thus resolving us of responsibility. There is no space between desire and action for anxiety to develop. Perhaps it is this: by avoiding any kind of metaphoric possibility, “Simple Simon” wants to absolve you of any ambiguity, any chance of misinterpretation. But now that friends of mine are having babies, I realize that all music made for infants exercises this kind of literalist restraint, so there must be something more that makes “Simple Simon” stand apart from, say, the songs Barney the purple dinosaur sings. I used to marvel at the restraint the studio musicians who made up this band must have exercised to adhere to such a risible premise and how this restraint translated into a high formalist art - “Simple Simon” as a pop-music Rothko. But as far as I can tell, Simple Simon is not a metaphor for anything the song is just about playing Simple Simon, and it gives you the directions. Lots of bubblegum songs employ pretty obvious double entrendre: “Chewy, Chewy” and “Yummy, Yummy, Yummy” “Wig Wam Bam” and “Little Willie” - even prepubescents can probably decode these. Put your hands in the air, Simple Simon says,ĭo it when Simon says, Simple Simon says, The name of the game is Simple Simon says, I used to think this was because the song resisted any kind of interpretation, and thus hearkened back to a time before the pain of metaphor, which is always a way of inscribing absence. Even though it borders on imbecilic, I have long been a fan of the song “Simon Says” by the 1910 Fruitgum Company. ![]()
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