![]() It is irregular and halting, but instantly familiar. Near the end of the second take, as the group chanted the title, Linda improvised a wordless vocal melody. In 1939, Solomon Linda and His Original Evening Birds performed three takes of the song called “Mbube,” the second of which became Gallotone’s subsequent 78 rpm release. But while Solomon Linda’s family were clearly wronged in the process and deserve money for his songwriting, the reduction of “Mbube”/“Wimoweh”/“The Lion Sleeps Tonight” to its lawsuits also takes some of the magic out of the song itself. It illustrates the story with great nuance, an archetypal tale of white publishers exploiting black musicians, of the Global North abusing the Global South. ![]() There are a number of ways to tell the story of how a song called “Mbube” became the ubiquitous “The Lion Sleeps Tonight.” A recent Netflix documentary, The Lion’s Share, focuses on the legal side - the struggle of songwriter Solomon Linda’s family to reclaim the song’s lost royalties. The melody’s 80-year journey from a Johannesburg recording studio in 1939 to Disney’s virtual reality Lion King remake is one about as convoluted as a song could take over the past century, from a piece of improvisation to multi-million dollar trans-continental legal actions. “Wimoweh, a-wimoweh,” went the warthog’s bass part, a word meaningless in the Kenyan Serengeti, where the movie was set, and meaningless on the South African coast, where the song itself originated. Have children lay down & “sleep” during the lyrics “In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the lion sleeps tonight.” Then the “Wimoweh” section will be fast & upbeat for the children to dance to! Then they will have to follow the music for cues for sleeping or dancing.A few years ago, on a virtual movie set on a securely locked server owned by one of the world’s largest corporations, a cartoon warthog and meerkat padded down a forest path and sang a song they both knew. I’ve used the puppets with well-known songs like “Down on Grandpa’s Farm” & “Old McDonald.” I’ve also used it with a song I learned from a MT graduate class called “Let’s Sing a Song About a Horse, Horse, Horse.” Laurie Berkner also has a cute song called “Farm Song” that could work with some of the animals! Also, “When Ducks Get Up in the Morning (they always say good day)” – that one would be really cute!Īlso, Laurie Berkner has a version of “Wimoweh” on one of her CDs that gave me an idea for a movement song. Mine were purchased from the dollar store, but I’ve recently seen some in the $1 section at Michael’s. I have very similar animal puppets – in fact, I’m pretty sure I have the same alligator. So cute, Rachel! I always look forward to your blog posts – you are so creative. I can get away with a gratuitous picture of my dog because this post is animal-related, right? Ha! I’m curious: how do you get musical with puppets and animals? I’m looking for more ways to incorporate them, just because they are always such a hit. My students get such a kick out of making their puppet “sing” when it’s his or her turn during the song…but probably not as the kick my pup Sadie got out of Mr. Here’s my animal puppet version of “In the Jungle” - which can easily be adapted to include any puppets or stuffed animals you have lying around! That’s when I got the idea to combine all of those different environments into 1 song, using one of my personal favorites as a template. See what I mean when I said eclectic? They all live in different environments, so I couldn’t do a “forest” or “jungle” song…or could I? ![]() Here they are in their little drawer: a lamb, parrot, rabbit, bear, mouse, and alligator. (I owe my family members big time for helping me grow my music therapy instrument and prop collection when I first started my career!) They are quite an eclectic bunch (the puppets, not my family members) and don’t have a whole lot in common, so I’ve struggled in the past with coming up for good uses with them. Alligator here is part of a set of animal puppets I received as a Christmas present a few years ago.
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