Kid-friendly songs the whole family will enjoy

I’m on a quest to gradually move my kids’ playlist away from “kid” songs, towards cool, yet still kid-friendly songs that my 6 year old and 3.75 year old will still love, so our whole family can enjoy music together.

I want to include songs that are fun, songs that are epic, songs that highlight various genres, songs by Australian artists, songs that we can sing along to, songs that will move our hearts, songs that will lift us up. (I want to avoid songs with sexy lyrics or excessive swearing and songs that are derogatory to women, or songs that are derogatory to people, period.)

This playlist is a work in progress. We started with a much higher kid to adult song ratio, and have been gradually adding more kid-friendly adult songs, whilst surreptitiously deleting the more annoying of the kid songs. We still have a few of the {generally less-annoying} kid songs lingering, but I think the ratio is now much more acceptable!

Anyway, have a look. Let me know what you think….

Here is our kid-friendly play list, as it is right now…

Across The Universe (The Beatles)
All You Need Is Love (The Beatles)
Beautiful Day (U2)
Beds Are Burning (Midnight Oil)
Because I Love You (Digital Rockers)
Be Our Guest (Jerry Orbach & Angela Lansbury – from Disney’s Beauty and the Beast)
Bette Davis Eyes (Kim Carnes)
Bitter Sweet Symphony (The Verve)
Bohemian Like You (The Dandy Warhols)
Bohemian Rhapsody (Queen)
Dog Days Are Over (Florence and the Machine)
Down Under (Men At Work)
A Dream Is A Wish Your Heart Makes (Meredith Robertson – from Disney’s Cinderella)
Eternal Flame (Bangles)
Fame (Irene Cara)
Hallelujah (Jeff Buckley)
Hazy Shade of Winter (Bangles)
Hearts A Mess (Gotye)
Here Comes The Sun (The Beatles)
Imagine (John Lennon)
Into My Arms (Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds)
The Lion Sleeps Tonight (Tight Fit)
Let It Be (The Beatles)
Life On Mars (David Bowie)
Love Will Tear Us Apart (Joy Division)
Manic Monday (Bangles)
Murder On The Dance Floor (Sophie Ellis Bextor)
My Girl (The Temptations)
Octopus’s Garden (The Beatles)
Once Upon A Dream (Joe York & Leslie French – from Disney’s Sleeping Beauty)
Parklife (Blur)
Part of Your World (Jodi Benson – from Disney’s A Little Mermaid)
Praise You (Fat boy Slim)
Rhythm Is A Dancer (SNAP!)
Song 2 (Blur)
Stairway to Heaven (Led Zepplin)
Sweet Child O’ Mine (Guns and Roses)
Throw Your Arms Around Me (Hunters and Collectors)
Tiny Dancer (Elton John)
Treaty (Yothu Yindi)
Twist and Shout (The Beatles)
Underground (Ben Folds Five)
Under the Sea (Roderick Sanford – from Disney’s A Little Mermaid)
Walk Like An Egyptian (Bangles)
We Are The Champions (Queen)
We Will Rock You (Queen)
What A Wonderful World (Tony Bennet & KD Lang)
Where Is My Mind (Pixies)
A Whole New World (Leslie French & Scott Kripple – from Disney’s Aladdin)
Wish You Were Here (Pink Floyd)
Wonderwall (Oasis)
Xanadu (Olivia Newton John & Electric Light Orchestra)
Yellow (Cold Play)
Yellow Submarine (The Beatles)

Here’s a few songs that are on my playlist wish-list to add later.

Birdhouse In Your Soul (They Might Be Giants)
Dr Worm (They Might Be Giants)
Push Th’ Little Daisies (Ween)
Roar (Katy Perry – JJ learned all the lyrics of this song for a school thing last year)
Shiny Happy People (REM)

In the meantime, I’ve got a few questions for you, if you don’t mind:

• Are there any songs you’re surprised to see on here? (I haven’t let any inappropriate lyrics slip in there, have I?)
• What other awesome songs would you recommend I add?
• And which should I have deleted long ago? Lol.

Hopefully, with a little help from you, we can get a kid-friendly playlist that rocks!

xx Danya