The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #12722   Message #102127
Posted By: raredance
03-Aug-99 - 11:15 PM
Thread Name: Songs about bugs, insects, spiders, snails, worms
Subject: RE: Buggy songs?
You can find a lot of insect songs in the DT by searching for the specific insect, the category @insect is pretty feeble. Things to search for include (and be sure to truncate to pick up the plurals): bee, fly, flies, butterfly, butterflies, grasshopper, cricket, flea, mosquito, caterpillar, maggot, blackfly(flies), tick, bumblebee, bedbug, bug, spider, boll weevil and any others you can think of. Admittedly some of the hits are songs where the particular insect is rather incidental to the song, but there are some other songs that have quite a few insects in them (e.g. versions of Frog Went A-courting). I haven't run all those searches for a couple years so there are certainly more songs added since then.

Some other songs:
Chistine Lavin's "I'm a Fly On A Plane" if you enjoy insects meeting their demise
Dean Stevens' "Ant and Grasshopper" (in the DT)
Malvina Reynolds' "Hello Lady Bug:
"Butterflies" (Theme song of BBC TV series some years ago)
Pete Seeger's "People Are Scratching"
"Metamorphosis" recorded by the Gateway Singers (this has some great lines: "PIty the poor caterpillar, whom nobody loves, no not even me" and the stepped on caterpillar "hideous goo that sticks to your shoe")
Tom Paxton's "Fred" about a dog and a flea
"Ma!, Ma! Where's My Pa?" a political song commissioned by the Republicans (not Irish) for use against Grover Cleveland who had fathered an illegitimate child.
"When I See An Elephant Fly" Walt Disney's Dumbo.

rich r