TwinkleTrax Nursery Rhymes Volume 1: A Sailor Went To Sea (subtitled 20 Favourite Nursery Rhymes and Kids Songs) was released back in September 2007, with a remixed version released in September 2008.It is available as an MP3 download from:
The TwinkleTrax Website
iTunes
Amazon UK
Amazon US
CD Baby
A selection of videos were made for the album.
Lavender's Blue
Lavenders Blue originated as a bawdy song named Diddle Diddle, or The Kind Country Lovers, first published in a broadsheet between 1674 and 1679. It was later reworked as a children's lullaby, appearing in Songs For The Nursery, published by Tabart and Co. in 1805.
The TwinkleTrax version includes a new verse:
Call up your men, dilly, dilly
Send them to war
While you and I, dilly, dilly
Keep ourselves warm
This was deliberately intended to give the song a slightly darker edge, to appeal to any adults that might be listening. However, all little boys like to play at being soldiers.
Micheal Finnegan
Micheal Finnegan was real person - a bearded Irish soldier serving in the British Army during World War One. Not much more is known about him, except that his fellow soldiers made up a song about him, his wife Biddy, and his daughter Katherine. The song caught on after the war, and was published by the Oxford University Press in 1927 in The Oxford Song Book, Vol.2, collected and arranged by Thomas Wood.
The song is popular with children and can be made to go on for many verses, with many improvised unfortunate events happening to the unfortunate Mr Finnegan.
Our version tries to maintain a folky, Irish feel, and features a fiddle solo playing a traditional Irish tune.
Miss Polly Had A Dolly
Probably one of the most recent tracks in the TwinkleTrax repertoire, Miss Polly Had A Dolly seems to date only from around 1986. It's composer is not known.
I Love Little Pussy
I Love Little Pussy is typical Victorian fare. It was written by Jane Taylor, best known as the author of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, and was first published in 1830 in The Child's Song Book.
Our version structures the original poem into a verse and chorus arrangement. There are, of course, modern connotations in the title that Taylor certainly would not have intended, and has led to the song falling out of favour in nurseries and kindergartens, with some even actively discouraging it. This pique of political correctness over a song about a child's love for her pet is blatantly ridiculous.
TwinkleTrax Nursery Rhymes Vol.1 - A Sailor Went To Sea
20 Favourite Nursery Rhymes and Kids Songs
This was the original TwinkleTrax album, first released in September 2007. It's origins go back much further than that, however. When TwinkleTrax owner Douglas Milne's children were small, in the early 2000's, he bought them various cassettes of children's music from UK shop, the Early Learning Center. These were, in Douglas' opinion, of very poor quality and he felt his kids deserved better. Douglas had dabbled in various musical projects since he was a teenager, and, recruiting his old friend, Edinburgh based actress and singer, Helen Raw, set about recording an album of children's music that children would love, and that would also appeal to their parents as well.
The album saw limited cassette release on Douglas' Little Bud label in 2001 in their native Scotland, but it was not until 2007, with the increasing popularity of MP3s, that the potential for worldwide distribution was realised. The album was re-recorded almost from scratch, keeping only the original vocals from the 2001 release, and was released worldwide via independent music distributor CD Baby.
The album's mix of traditional children's music and UK folk music and instrumentation has been met with acclaim, with the sometimes riotous arrangements appealing to both children and adults alike.
The full track listing is:
1) Tom, He Was A Piper's Son
2) Bobby Shafto
3) There Was An Old Woman Tossed Up In A Basket
4) Lavender's Blue
5) The House That Jack Built
6) Dance To Your Daddy
7) The Fox
8) A Sailor Went To Sea
9) Michael Finnegan
10) Miss Polly Had A Dolly
11) Three Little Monkeys
12) I Love Little Pussy
13) There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed A Fly
14) Little Miss Muffet
15) This Old Man
16) Old King Cole
17) The Riddle Song (I Gave My Love A Cherry)
18) Twinkle Twinkle Little Star
19) Aiken Drum
20) Golden Slumbers
