Look and Read - Songs

Songs

Some of the most memorable moments of the programme were its educational songs. Each story had its own individual theme tune, many of which are well remembered among fans of the programme. Each teaching segment also featured many songs with animations, featuring characters like Dog Detective, which were used regularly over the show's history. Many of the lyrics, such as the 'Clue Song' with Dog Detective, the Karate Chopper and 'Bill the Brickie', were written by Patricia Farrington, ('Pat Farrington'), who also created the characters. Music for the songs were composed by Paddy Kingsland, Roger Limb and Peter Howell of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop and most of the songs were sung by Derek Griffiths. Among the most popular were:

  • "Bill the Brickie", which showed a bricklayer "building" words out of bricks, demonstrating the use of units of words or morphemes (see a clip on YouTube).
  • "The Punctuation Song", which featured Mr Big, representing capital letters, and Mrs Full Stop.
  • "I'm An Apostrophe", which demonstrated the various uses of the apostrophe. It went "I'm an apostrophe, come and take a look at me, I'm not a comma, I'm not a full stop, don't put me on the line - I go at the top!"
  • Probably the most popular, though, was "Magic E", a song originally written in the mid 70s for use in 'Words and Pictures', to demonstrate silent E and the change in pronunciation of preceding vowels — for example, "cap" becomes "cape" with me, "tap" becomes "tape" with me. The song's simple lyrics about changing the words with "magic E" were memorable and simple to learn. Although the song was intended as an innocent song for children it was also open to parody due to the double meaning of the phrase "Magic E" in relation to the drug ecstasy, especially since the "Aceed" club scene was coming into popularity at the end of the 80s. Many who remember the song refer to it, in humour, in this context. The BBC's own "Cult" web page on the programme does not refer to that song with the phrase "Drop That E!" - this is the title of a different song. However they do include the comment "it's about spelling. Honest."

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Famous quotes containing the word songs:

    “We can never see Christianity from the catechism:Mfrom the pastures, from a boat in the pond, from amidst the songs of wood- birds we possibly may.”
    —Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    “And songs climb out of the flames of the near campfires,
    Pale, pastel things exquisite in their frailness
    With a note or two to indicate it isn’t lost,
    On them at least. The songs decorate our notion of the world
    And mark its limits, like a frieze of soap-bubbles.”
    —John Ashbery (b. 1927)

    “In her days every man shall eat in safety
    Under his own vine what he plants, and sing
    The merry songs of peace to all his neighbors.”
    —William Shakespeare (1564–1616)