‘Donna donna’ — Joan Baez at her soulful best. It’s a melancholy but melodious Yiddish theatre song about a calf being led to slaughter, its lyrics filled with solemn symbolism.
Not exactly what you’d call a children’s song.
But some folks in Chinese toyland thought differently:
Yes, ladies and gentlemen. That is what they did to ‘Donna donna’ (please don’t miss the electronic barnyard chirps in between). What I really want to know is, why? What was the thought process here? Why this particular song instead of, say a ‘Baa baa blacksheep’ or even a ‘My bonnie lies over the ocean’?
Let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that there was some sort of American folk music bias in the song selection. So what were the companion pieces, you ask? Some Dylan, some Simon & Garfunkel, maybe some Joni Mitchell? Nope. Pressing each successive button (green and fish shaped, please note) was an adventure in musical randomness. What followed in tinny, cacophonous succession was: ‘Polly put the kettle on’, ‘Jingle bells’, ’12 days of Christmas’, ‘Oh Susanna’ and oh yes, not to forget Vivaldi’s Four Seasons (I’d upload that too, but it’s just too heartbreaking).
Of these, ‘Donna donna’ was the hardest to figure out (it was the most mangled by far) and if it wasn’t for one of those Android apps that name a tune for you when you hum it, we wouldn’t have figured it out at all. It was the husband’s brilliant idea, and so, to the daughter’s increasing annoyance, mummy and daddy sat hunched over her (usually unpopular) toy, playing the tune over and over, and then humming it into daddy’s phone. Not our finest hour as parents, but the sense of elation we felt once we’d placed the song made it all worthwhile. As we played ‘Donna donna’ on youtube, it was as though, finally, one of life’s mysteries had been solved. A puzzle piece fallen into place. Things made sense again. As we high-fived and the daughter whined, it seemed we would prevail over the diabolical designers in Chinese toyland.
But, alas, it was not to be. Fired up by our success, we tried, tried, and tried again to place the last two unidentified, elusive green-fish button songs. But they were just so tuneless, so utterly random, that even the musical app finally threw up its hands in despair and crashed. It really gave its all first though… it suggested everything from classical pieces to Spanish dance songs. But we had to admit defeat at last. Whatever technological strides man makes, some mysteries must remain. It is the way of the world (and really crappy toys).
(Just out of curiosity — can you, dear readers, do better than the app? Can you figure out what these dratted tunes are? The husband and I would be very grateful):
Edited to add: Woohoo! My 100th post on this blog! 🙂
Divya Kumar 