One journalist’s view: “To the blessedly uninitiated, and in any context, this is arguably the creepiest pop hit ever written.” – Sadie Stein @ The Paris Review, “Worst. Kid. Song. Ever.”
The public’s view: 2.89 / 5.00
There are many historical bits of pop culture that we look back on and say, “That aged about as well as an ice cream sandwich in my armpit on a hot July day.” Much of the time, however, people say that about things that were inappropriate in the first place. “Little Children” hasn’t aged poorly. It was a terrible idea from the start.
In “Little Children”, Billy J. Kramer is singing to a group of kids who have caught him doing something very naughty. He must keep them quiet, so he issues vague threats. “I’m tellin’ you, little children, you better not tell what you see.” This isn’t working, so he moves on to bribery. “I’ll give you candy and a quarter.” Then he gets frustrated with these brats’ presence and possibly with their very existence. “I wish they would go away, little children.” Murder is not off the table.
Up until the bridge, which isn’t heard until the latter half of the song, we aren’t told what misdeed needs to be concealed. We must make an educated guess based on the clues that we have. We know the transgression was of sufficient gravity for the dude to pay hush money to cover it up. We know it occurred in a location where he can get candy to effectuate this bribe. We also know that the man’s wrongful actions are something that even a young child would recognize as unusual and might excitedly blab about. (The kids probably aren’t going to turn him in to the SEC for insider stock trading.) Applying Occam’s Razor, we deduce that the simplest explanation is also the most likely: the children saw the narrator engaging in an extremely improper act with a jar of Ragu at the grocery.
I know some people won’t come to the same conclusion. “Oh, he just doesn’t want the kids telling everyone that he ran over the neighbors’ dog,” an unworldly naïf might believe. That simply doesn’t fit the scenario as well. For me, the evidence is quite clear: the man in the lyrics did something unwholesome in an indoor place, probably a store, and the meddling tykes witnessed it despite his attempt at discretion. I will concede that it didn’t necessarily involve pasta sauce; he may be more of a Chiffon margarine guy. However, this isn’t my imagination running amok. The songwriters want us to hear lewdness in “Little Children”, because the vile details that we provide with our own brains are what keep us listening. The music won’t do it by itself, as it is only average at best.
There are two clever directions that “Little Children” could take with this concept in its second half. One is to subtly reinforce the obscene mental image that the lyrics have painted. There could be a lament about A&P banning the singer from the entire grocery chain, or a verse in which the little children refuse to say why they won’t eat the lasagna that everyone else loves. It would still be a gross song, but the humor might keep it afloat. The other option would be to shatter our assumptions by revealing an unexpectedly innocent explanation for why the kids need to keep a secret. It turns out that they are the narrator’s own children, and he doesn’t want them giving away the surprise party he is planning for their mom’s 38th birthday. Now the joke is on the listener for having a dirty mind.
Unfortunately, “Little Children” follows a third path. We ultimately learn that the little children caught the narrator in flagrante delicto with their sister, and are being ordered not to tell their parents about it under any circumstance. Wow. This is no longer a victimless crime that can be remedied with a quick cleanup in the spaghetti aisle. I like to defend controversial songs, but here it is too much of a stretch. Under the most generous interpretation, the narrator’s girlfriend could theoretically be of legal age with a gap of many years between her and her young siblings. The lyrics don’t rule this out, but then we would need to invent a different reason why the guy is so worried about the woman’s parents finding out about the relationship. Perhaps they will disinherit her if she dates someone who isn’t a Zoroastrian? Once again, Occam’s Razor tells us that this probably isn’t the case. Let’s just accept that the simplest, and most disturbing, explanation is the correct one: the singer will be going to jail if the kids tell the grown-ups what they have seen.
Billy J. Kramer didn’t write “Little Children”, so he doesn’t deserve all of the blame. I have to wonder, though, why he didn’t stop the recording and ask for a rewrite of that awful second half of the song. “You know, chaps, we shouldn’t have the guy be that big of a perv. Maybe he could just enjoy a good wank at Tesco every now and then.” In any event, this was his biggest hit and he has to live with the consequences. Imagine headlining a nostalgia show at age 70, and the one song you absolutely must perform is about giving kids candy to shut them up about what you’re doing with their sister.
My rating: 1 / 10
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