As a children's program expert, everything in this album tracks in terms of the absurdity of educating children. You need showy sounds, bold lyrics, and the sweet voices of children to backup a showboating main character like Scruff McGruff.
This album was lyrically wonderful. You read that correctly. I was surprised, stunned, laughing, and starting to fear for my life, and body, thanks to Scruff's deep words. Never have I thought I would hear the lyrics "never try, marijuana, at all... It's like beating your head on a wall." Who penned, "There's danger in inhalants / they can break you in two / so never smoke inhalants"? All of these words were made more powerful by the cutie little voices singing about things like "inhalants" over and over. And the dulcet tones of Scruff repeating "don't use drugs / don't use drugs," isn't a lyric I thought I would hear a gravel-voiced man sing, but, here we are.
These songs have all the qualities of a lovely '80s album, but with all the insanity of teaching children about really tough topics. "No! No! No!" could be in Footloose, if the town was opposed to drugs and not so opposed to dancing. Wait, now that I think of it, why is the problem dancing and not drugs? Wait, now that I think of it, ALL of these songs could be in the Footloose rewrite I'm mentally crafting about drug use. Just workshopping these, but maybe it would be retitled Drugloose? Drug-use? Inhalant Town?
Just a shout-out to the song "Alcohol" which was jazzy and sexy. I think it made me want a drink more than deter me from imbibing. Cheers!
I think every song off this album talks about death which is heavy shit for a kid's album. Then again, kid shows like Bluey and Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood have also tackled the concept of death. I guess the difference lies in the intensity and finality. Smart Kids tells us bluntly, you do (fill in the substance), you will die.
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