This week we’re talking in more depth about what we like and what we learned from the songs in last week’s playlist.

The Sesame Street Kids, "Sing"

MAC: We could have filled this whole playlist with songs from the early days of Sesame Street. That golden era, the first fifteen or so years from the show's debut in 1969, attracted so many musical geniuses — Joe Raposo, who wrote this song, Jeff Moss, Beverly Glenn Copeland.

You watch the old stuff and it feels like a bunch of brilliant people, all at the top of their fields, working hard to make something good for kids.

I love how straightforward “Sing” is — a statement of song's power (and an acknowledgement that it can be hard to sing in front of other people). A contemporary version of this song would probably pack in some big explicitly social-emotional lesson. But singing is "social" and "emotional" and Raposo trusts the material.

JON: There's a tone to this early Sesame Street stuff, both the show and the songs, where they talk about staying positive, but not in a way that invalidates sadness. They almost make sadness feel like the de facto feeling we're all starting from, without being depressing.

MAC: The melancholy 70s flute.

Ella Jenkins, "Did You Feed My Cow?"

JON: A happy one!

MAC: This song has an electric moment (for me) when you can hear how good Ella Jenkins was with kids.