Carole King's Really Rosy

The Nutshell Library

The other day, Helene called me from her office, wanting to know the name of the Carole King song about the boy who would only say, "I don't care." She wanted someone else to hear it. As soon as she mentioned it, I felt an overwhelming craving to hear not only the song but the entire album again.
The album is called "Really Rosy" and its the soundtrack from an animated TV special done by children's book author and illustrator Maurice Sendak back in the Seventies. The special took his four book set called the Nutshell Library, a tiny boxed set three inches tall and two inches deep that contains four of his best works: "Alligators All Around," "Pierre," "Chicken Soup With Rice," and "One Was Johnny." Sendak mashed these book up with his "Really Rosie" title and created one magical half hour of kid's programming and animation, for which King created a soundtrack by writing tunes to his words.
"Alligators All Around" is an alphabet book. "Chicken Soup With Rice" teaches the calendar, while "One was Johnny" is a counting book. "Pierre" can best be described as a wild card. Sendak subtitles it a cautionary tale with a moral; he might just as well call it a hilarious tale that subverts itself all over the place.

The Show

I don't remember the show very well; I saw it with my kids when it aired and then it disappeared into the ozone layer that contains old TV shows and, to the best of my knowledge, was never seen again. A shortlived VHS was released, went quickly out of print, and a DVD has never been issued. What I do remember is that Sendak oversaw the animation and directed the show, so that it was in his style and accurately presented his world. It centered on a group of kids in a working class neighborhood of Brooklyn and their adventures, both real and imaginary. It was a creative triumph and should have become a classic.

The Music

The soundtrack album did become a classic. It has never been out of print and the children's librarian in my library tells me that it is one of the most in-demand albums in libraries across the country. I know in my town if you want to get it out of the library, you've got a six week wait. It can, however, be found in the kid's departments of all the chain book and record stores and can be downloaded on Itunes. If you have kids, it is an essential purchase. If you don't, it is still well worth having.
It is Carole King at her most exuberant. She takes the songs seriously but still packs them with more energy and fun than you'd think a Carole King CD could produce. She knows that in this instance especially, the song is much more important than the singer, so she concentrates on letting the song speak. She acts the songs, becoming the character of Rosie and lets her voice wail and moan when Rosie
acts out a horror picture, becoming formal with the Shakespeare. It's a great performance. The fact that her backup singers are her kids makes it even more fun.

The conclusion

Here is what I'm thinking: everybody, no matter what their age, should read Maurice Sendak at least once a day and everybody, no matter what their age, should own this CD and play it all the time.