De do doo doo

And sometimes you find yourself poking around online for lists of good songs with nonsensical lyrics. And when you do, you count yourself lucky when you stumble on this one, with brief glosses, pertinent defenses of the value of silly syllables (Sting, on how the simple can be powerful: "Why are our favorite songs 'Da Doo Ron Ron' and 'Do Wah Diddy Diddy'? In the song [De do do do, by The Police], I tried to address that issue"), and embedded videos. Consider the issue addressed.

But don't consider it exhausted. Cleo likes to sing, too, and sometimes the results of her improvisatory effort are - when they're not baffling - deeply entertaining. You might here a laconic commentary on her decision-making process, or a dirge about being bored, or an ode to a prince. Of course, none of that is really very nonsensical; rather, a theoretician might say that she's crafting positions, or testing possibilities. Point ceded. But surely there's an element of pure, silly play in some of her iterations, too. After all, she's four - and, as we saw yesterday when we got her together with a fellow Redbird, silliness is the current rage. Dadaist knock-knock jokes, absurd noises, and daring claims that these tiny people will poop on our crowns represent, at the moment, the height of humor and joy. A couple of weeks ago, Cleo took to calling, jubilantly, her uncle a sillybottom. But while she shrieked with laughter as she said it, the term wasn't solely funny; rather, it was also clearly a term of deep endearment, in its very application. Why is 'Da Doo Ron Ron' so durable, as a song? Because we're all, at some level, sillybottoms - and some of us even more than others.