There’s a lot to be said for an album which features the likes of Tindersticks, Bonnie Prince Billy, Jarvis Cocker and Kurt Wagner covering songs from childrens’ TV and films. 

However, can you imagine how much better it would be if the principle had been applied in reverse?  Here are some of my suggestions:

1) Rod, Jane and Freddy from Rainbow covering the Tindersticks’ “Tiny Tears”.  With interpretative dancing.  I see them all on a boat, play-rowing across an ocean of tears painted by Geoffrey and Bungle (despite the best efforts of Zippy to throw his fly-faced spanner in the works).

2) Acerbic reclusive (and ever-so-slightly dead) misanthrope Kenneth Williams of Jackanory/Wind In The Willows fame (how he would have loved that description) doing Pulp.  I can just imagine the sneer on his face: “Common People?  Oh how dreadful”.  He can follow that with Lambchop’s “Up With People” if he is feeling particularly generous, which to be fair isn’t the most common character trait of the dead.

3) Keith Harris and Orville doing “I See A Darkness”.  Can you imagine?  Keith: “You’re my friend”.  Orville: “It’s what you told me…”.  Do you think Keith ever noticed the kind of thoughts Orville got?  This song is the dark and inevitable comedown after the halcyon days joyously recalled in “Orville’s Song”; perhaps Cuddles The Monkey could leap out of his box for an encore chorus of “Death To Everyone”at the end.

Hear (and fear) Bonnie Prince Billy’s awesome “Puff The Magic Dragon” here courtesy of City Slang.  Listen to more (and see Jarvis reading “The Lion and Albert”) at the Songs For The Young At Heart website.  Oh, and you can buy it here.