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5. Jim Henson as Kermit the Frog: “Rainbow Connection”
The only song on our list to receive an Oscar nomination — best original song, from the 1979 “Muppet Movie” — with a killer bridge and gutting key change. The lyrics manage to be about nothing in particular yet totally intelligible. Try not to cry!
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6. Bluey: “The Weekend”
Speaking of crying … do not get any millennial parent started on “Bluey,” the contemporary cartoon series about a family of four Australian cattle dogs. Its simple tales of domestic life, told in seven-minute increments, smash together delightfulness and profundity in a manner that resembles pop music at its best. And the show’s playful, original score is a key mood setter, regulating the emotions of child and parent alike. You could watch “The Weekend,” the early episode that this softer, mostly instrumental track by the Australian composers David Barber and Joff Bush, accompanies. But just listening may get the point across.
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7. Elizabeth Mitchell: “Little Liza Jane”
A folk musician whose collaborators have included Lisa Loeb, Levon Helm and Ziggy Marley, Elizabeth Mitchell has released several albums geared toward children, none better than “You Are My Little Bird” (2006). At the risk of jinxing it, when Taylor Swift gets around to recording her kids’ album, one could imagine it sounding something like this.
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8. Jessica Darrow (from “Encanto”): “Surface Pressure”
A neat thing about Lin-Manuel Miranda’s original songs from the 2021 Disney film “Encanto” is that they double as Latin genre experiments. The Oscar-nominated, Spanish-language “Dos Oruguitas” is in the style of Colombian folk. The chart-topping “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” uses Cuban beats. And “Surface Pressure,” an eloquent lament of the taken-for-granted middle sister, is recognizably reggaeton — even as it also serves the story, is unmistakably a Miranda song (“Was Hercules ever like, ‘Yo I don’t want to fight Cerberus?’” is more or less straight out of “Hamilton”), and holds the attention of child and grown-up alike.
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9. Peter, Paul and Mary: “Puff, the Magic Dragon”
You may have heard something about the true subject matter of this song composed by the recently deceased Peter Yarrow, who borrowed a poem by Leonard Lipton for the lyrics. But whatever its subtext, “Puff, the Magic Dragon” is foremost a gorgeous elegy for childhood. It conveys an appropriate sentiment for parenting young children, a vocation that constantly reminds you of its fleeting nature. Check out the version with a children’s choir from the group’s kids’ album, “Peter, Paul and Mommy” (1969), and stick around for other classics composed by Yarrow, Tom Paxton and even Shel Silverstein.
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