Daughter’s heart on the soccer field:
Dad, if these were women now, it wouldn’t be a team, but a women’s team.
Children’s songs
In the last two weeks, I attended two concerts for children, one by Fredrik Vahle and one by Volker Rosin. Fredrik Vahle is the one whose CDs you’d gladly give to kids so they can listen to something sensible, while Volker Rosin’s music is automatically known to kids through KIKA’s Tanzalarm. One of them has been awarded the Federal Cross of Merit for his contributions to the development of the “new children’s song”, while the other made it into the Top 20 once. One of them has created impressive lyrics like “Ciao, es war schön/Euch hier zu sehen/Doch einmal kommt die Zeit zum Auseinandergehen” (“Goodbye, it was nice/seeing you here/but eventually comes the time to part ways”), while the other invites kids to sing along with “Clap your hands, wir sind Mambo-Fans” (or something similar).
Apparently, I was looking forward to Fredrik Vahle more than to Volker Rosin, but our daughter had fun at both concerts and probably didn’t notice any difference (although she said she liked Rosin better because he made more noise with the kids). However, yesterday I had to change my opinion about Volker Rosin: apart from making the adults laugh too (he asked a child on stage, “Where do you know this song from?” “From the CD.” “You have a CD by Volker Rosin?” “Yes.” “Is that an original CD or a burned one?”), he was really committed, didn’t just go through his program, and gave every child an autograph card and was available for free photos with them. I had expected to be charged 6 euros for a Polaroid photo with him (like at the circus recently, where you could stand next to an elephant), but apparently I overestimated the commercial aspect here.
In conclusion: I still can’t do much with the music ( “The King of Children’s Disco” sounded to my friend and me somehow like “The King of Mallorca”), and we will continue to sneak Fredrik Vahle CDs onto our daughter like vegetables between noodles; but at least I had to give up my prejudice against Volker Rosin yesterday. He seemed really nice, and he genuinely appeared to be having fun singing with the kids. Oh, and if we ever actually want one of his CDs, then we’ll buy it – after all, you never know which child will be on stage next year.