Maybe the smartest thing about Laura Veirs' new children's album, Tumble Bee, is that some of its tracks aren't even children's songs. Researching the rich history of American folk music for material she could interpret, Veirs cast a wide net to include not only tunes written expressly for kids, but any other compositions she felt could reasonably slot alongside the likes of "Little Lap Dog Lullaby" and "King Kong Kitchie Kitchie Ki-Me-O". Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the way our 21st-century ears tend to hear anything written 50 or 100 or more years ago as comparatively quaint, songs as thematically disparate as the Civil War-era "Soldier's Joy" (here a duet with the Decemberists' Colin Meloy) and a calypso tune popularized by Harry Belafonte, "Jamaica Farewell", don't feel so out of place on a record aimed at little ones.
Then again, another thing many of these songs have in common is being really strange, and occasionally even quite dark. Listening to some of Veirs' cover choices makes you think of Greil Marcus' famous description of the folk material Bob Dylan and the Band mined in the late 1960s as capturing the "old, weird America." There's Woody Guthrie's "Why Oh Why", featuring such bizarre existential quandries as "Why can't a bird eat an elephant?" and "Why ain't my grandpa my grandma?" There's plenty more that's just flat-out macabre, like the title character of "The Fox" informing a pen of doomed ducks and geese that "a couple of you gonna grease my chin." Sure enough he keeps his promise, his whole family feasts on the fowl, and the song ends by gleefully pointing out that "the little ones chewed on the bones." Then there's "All the Pretty Little Horses" (also covered in recent years by Calexico and, earlier, Current 93 with Nick Cave), a superficially gentle (hear the percussive elements kindly mimicing jangling spurs) but deeply haunting African-American lullaby dating back to the days of slavery; many versions have neutered the song by altering its most harrowing lines, but Veirs retains them: "Way down yonder, down in the medder/ There's a poor little lambie/ Bees and the butterflies pecking at its eye/ Poor little thing cried 'Mammy.'"
The title track, a Karl Blau song, is also underlined by a grown-up recognition of disappointment and loss. The music may be jaunty, riding playful trumpets and sparkly keys, but the words and Veirs' fragile voice point to a more sobering reality. "She'll sting me as she longs to be free," Veirs sings of the titular insect. Tumble Bee is a welcome addition to contemporary children's music, not only because it's sufficiently involving to appeal to adults, but also because it further demonstrates that songs for kids don't have to be cloying or sanitized.
