2018, Term 2, Week 6: New Zealand Children's Music Part 1

Now that we have finished New Zealand Music Month, it's a good time to look at music for children by New Zealand composers and musicians. 

Last week we talked about the visual reference to Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody in Mother Goose's "Baked Beans" video.  Here's a Muppets version of Bohemian Rhapsody - can you find the connection? 

We revisit our favourite  from previous years - The Wreck of the Diddley by Fatcat and Fishface.   Here's a link the the lyrics. 

Some background and vocabulary to help you understand the song better: 

In the early days of European settlement in New Zealand there were very few roads, and most people wanted to live within close distance of a coastal area with a harbour or sheltered area for ships to dock.  Travel by sea  (or river) was usually the easiest and quickest way to transport people and goods from place to place.  In those days, the various types of ships and boats were as common as the trucks, trains, buses and planes we use for transport today.  Except, there was no GPS, no rain radars or satellite weather information,  no telecommunications to send signals if you were in trouble - and no rescue services.  There were many shipwrecks, and many ships disappeared without a trace.  Many,many lives of passengers and crews were lost. 

The Wreck of the Diddley is set in New Zealand waters - somewhere near the Wellington suburb of Island Bay, on the shores of Cook Strait (although NZ waters were not known to be visited by pirates, as indicated in this song). 

Typhoon - a really big storm - and another name for a tropical cyclone.  It's called a typhoon in some Asian areas, a hurricane in the Northern Atlantic areas (USA, UK) and a cyclone in the South Pacific (Australia, Pacific Islands, New Zealand).

20 foot high - a foot is a measurement of distance. It's a little bit over 6 metres. 

Port and starboard  the left and righthand side (or direction) of a ship when facing the front. 

Abandon ship everybody get off the ship

A dozen  twelve 

Was a bright summer’s day back in 1859
No it wasn’t, it was 1863
And we sailed on the good ship ‘My Darling Clementine’
No we didn’t, it was ‘Mary Jane Marie’

Then came a storm, a typhoon I recall
And the waves they crashed all around
They were 20 foot high and they looked us in the eye
And we thought to a man we would drown

Chorus: We thought we’d die diddley die
Diddley diddley diddley die
We thought we’d die diddley die
Diddley die

It was young Nick Magoo who saw the rocks ahead
No it wasn’t, it was old man John McGee
And the captain steered to port and we headed into land
No he didn’t, it was starboard out to sea

Then was a mighty crack, a terrible sickening sound
And the brave mast came a-tumbling down
The salt it stung our eyes, ”Abandon ship”, we cried
And we thought to a man we would drown

Chorus:

The water was a-boil with a dozen drowning men
No it wasn’t cos I counted 43
And we clung to bits of wood and anything we could
No we didn’t, we were sinking helplessly

We shouted to the skies and we said our last goodbyes
As the darkness gathered all around
We were frozen to the core and we couldn’t swim no more
And so to a man we did drown

Chorus:

And sometimes late at night on the shores of Island Bay
If you listen you will hear a ghostly sound
And some do say it’s wind and some do say you may
Hear the singing of the sailor men who drowned

Chorus:

And another quick Fatcat and Fishface favourite - the Undies Song.