© 2024 Interlochen
CLASSICAL IPR | 88.7 FM Interlochen | 94.7 FM Traverse City | 88.5 FM Mackinaw City IPR NEWS | 91.5 FM Traverse City | 90.1 FM Harbor Springs/Petoskey | 89.7 FM Manistee/Ludington
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Kids Commute - Monster Week! Thursday

MONSTER Week! Thursday: Today, "The Green-Eyed Dragon," by Wolseley Charles. Interlochen Public Radio - classical music for kids!

Hey there, Kids Commuters, and welcome to Day Four of MONSTER Week on IPR's Kids Commute!

This week, we're enjoying music for monsters, from movies to myths!

This week's theme is in honor of our first-ever Kids Commute Live! concert, coming up Saturday, October 18th. Join us for a fun, eerie, informative concert with the Interlochen Arts Academy Band, with lots of extra special Interlochen guests. Our finale will be an interactive performance of Eric Whitacre's "Godzilla Eats Las Vegas." Tune in all week for a chance to win tickets to the concert. Winning kids are invited to a pre-concert party at the Interlochen Public Radio station!

Today, we'll hear music for a dragon - just the worst dragon - in music from English composer Wolseley Charles. He was mostly known for writing little comic monologues, like, "Sam, Pick Oop the Musket," (all about a soldier refusing to pick up his musket after his sergeant accidentally knocks it off his shoulder).

In this case, we'll hear a funny story about "The Green-Eyed Dragon" - a very rude fellow with thirteen tails who camps out on the front porch of a Princess and proceeds to eat...terrible things.

KC 233
"The Green-Eyed Dragon"
Wolesley Charles
John Aler, tenor, with Grant Gershon, piano

Here's today's Kids Commute:

Sing along with John Aler! Here are the lyrics:

Once upon a time lived a Fair Princess most beautiful and charming;
Her Father, the King, was a wicked old thing, with manners most alarming.
And always on the front door mat, a most ferocious Dragon sat,
Who made such a fearful shrieking noise that all you little girls and boys
Beware, take care, and creep upon tiptoe,
And hurry up the stairs, and say your prayers,
And tuck your head, your pretty curly head,
beneath the clothes, the clothes, the clothes.

The Dragon lived for years and years, and never got much thinner.
For lunch, he'd try a Policeman pie, a roast M.P. for dinner;
One brave man went 'round with an axe and tried to collect his income tax -
The Dragon smiled with fiendish glee, and sadly murmured 'R.I.P.'
Beware!  Take Care! And creep upon tiptoe,
And hurry up the stairs, and say your prayers,
And tuck your head, your pretty curly head,
beneath the clothes, the clothes, the clothes.

The Dragon went down to the kitchen one day
Where the Fair Princess was baking;
He ate, by mistake, some rich plum cake
which the Fair Princess was making.
This homemade cake, he could not digest;
He moaned and he groaned, and at last went west -
And now his ghost, with bloodshot eyes
At midnight clanks his chains and cries:
Beware!  Take care!  And creep upon tiptoe,
And hurry up the stairs, and say your prayers,
And tuck your head, your pretty curly head,
Beneath the clothes, the clothes, the clothes. . . .

Kate Botello is a host and producer at Classical IPR.