Friday, August 20, 2010

Inch by Inch

Last night my husband sat down to read Hypatia's bedtime story, and the book on the top of the library pile was Inch by Inch. The illustrations were only mediocre, but as he was reading he recognized it as a song from childhood. The song is in the back of the book, so I plunked out the melody line on our piano and we all tried to sing it.

We recognized its time period as being something from our parents' generation - I called it a "back to the earther anthem", and we knew it had been sung by some of those folksy guitar singers of the time period. But my husband knew the song far better than he would have from just hearing it a few times. Where had he heard it? Did his father like to sing it?

Thank goodness for YouTube, which can settle these sorts of nagging questions. He knows the song because John Denver sang it on The Muppet Show. Oh, our dearly beloved Muppet Show. How we loved you.

1 comment:

  1. I love this song. I'm pretty sure it's an old Irish song. My parents helped sponsor two singers from Ireland who would come to AZ and put on shows. This is one of my favorites, my Dad would sing it on the weekends when he'd head out to work in the yard. What a great memory. Thanks :)

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