Sweet thrills
Bitte Boecher's illustration signals idyll and an absence of any danger. But when you open the songbook, you find that it pours out the one cruel song after the other. We start with the little black kitten with the white paws. Looking further down the page, the notes appear. Without figurations or bass notes, written in such a way that anyone with the barest minimum of knowledge of music can sit down at the piano - or put a recorder in his or her mouth - and play "Look at the little kitten" ("Se den lille kattekilling"). So far so good. But come to the bottom of the page and things start to go wrong. Bitte Boecher has drawn a mouse here and in the text the cat asks the mouse to come out and play. So we can all guess what's going to happen - things are going to go terribly wrong!
Already from the first song onwards, we are presented with double-edged texts. The little child is happily thrilled by the cat's playing with the mouse, the story about the boy Poul, who let his hens fly around the garden - to the great joy of the fox - and the tale of the 10 little cyclists, nine of whom come to grief. Fortunately the child can turn over to the next page. Here he encounters the monk walking around peaceful meadowlands or the little lamb which bleats bah, bah.
Popular children's songs
It was the schoolmaster Gunnar Nyborg-Jensen who collected these well-known children's songs and games. From the time of the World War II occupation of Denmark, he was known as studio host for the We sing together (Vi synger sammen) request programme on the radio, and when in 1948 he finally got tired of dragging round heavy songbooks and loose stencilled music sheets all the time, he collected the most popular children's songs in a little book.
This became the The Little Ones Sing songbook. Down the years, 1.5 million copies of the book have been printed, a special anniversary CD with locally renowned singers interpreting the songs has achieved huge sales, and a few songs have had to be replaced. For instance, "In Niggerland, bananas grow" ("I niggerland bananen gror") was expunged from the songbook in 1993. Otherwise the songbook that you see today in Danish children's rooms and institutions is more or less unchanged. As it has been for more than two generations.
Lone Nyhuus, a former dancer and choreographer, is a freelance journalist working for i.e. Danish Radio Programme 2's Theatre Magazine.
Cover of The Little Ones Sing
By Bitte Böcher. Hoest og Soen, 1948