On Music 2: Dog on the Floor

Raffi Cavoukian's new album, "Dog on the Floor," is not for everyone. After all, it's fifteen songs for children, performed by a Canadian guy who's been known for writing children's music for longer than I've been alive. But if you have children, or if you like children's music, or especially if you grew up listening to Raffi, this is a must listen.

I have been listening to Raffi since before I can remember, and his music has always been a comfort (with the exception of "Evergreen Everblue," which was my introduction to environmentalism and has some songs on it that kinda scared me as a kid). Baby Beluga and Bananaphone are family traditions, and when I moved to the Pacific Northwest I remembered that Raffi had written a song about a place very near to where I was going to live. This was the first new Raffi album I'd heard about since "Bananaphone" (though he's produced several others in the meantime), and so when it came out last week, I ordered it on CD and prepared for a major nostalgia trip.

And I got exactly what I came for. "Dog on the Floor" comes from the same place, both geographically and philosophically, that I remember from my childhood. Raffi, along with local children and other professional musicians, sing about the joy of being a child ("Play Play Play"); the pastoral ideals of the British Columbia Gulf Islands ("Market Day" and "The Way it Goes"), and animals, especially the titular dog, Raffi's poodle/collie mix Luna (in "Luna's Song," "Walkin' My Dog," and "Dog on the Floor"). The lyrics paint a picture of a world that's much less complicated than the one I live in, and lets me remember, or perhaps imagine, a time in my life before I had to worry about anything.

But there's at least one song on this album that's as much for today's worried grownups, as it is for children: the next-to-last song, "Take a Breath," is a meditation on mindfulness, a reminder to take a moment every now and then to breathe, to stretch, to sing (and it doesn't hurt if what you're singing is a Raffi song).

The voice of my childhood is back, and he's telling me it's going to be okay. And for me, that's reason enough to listen.