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“Teddy Bear Picnic” is the most horrifying song in history, a thread:
The spooky chords. Horrifying. The original Am to E7 should never be paired together. Plus it does this weird crescendo before the chorus and an article in the Paris Review tells me part of this music is a rip off of “The Death and Glory March”. That’s a no from me, dawg.
If you don’t the tune is spooky, imagine Lana del Rey singing this and good luck sleeping tonight.
Breaking down the versus:
If you go down in the woods today
You're sure of a big surprise
If you go down in the woods today
You'd better go in disguise!
Here we have an unnamed narrator telling children about an event they have seen and presumably survived-more on that later.
If you go down in the woods today
You're sure of a big surprise
If you go down in the woods today
You'd better go in disguise!
Here we have an unnamed narrator telling children about an event they have seen and presumably survived-more on that later.
Our narrator knows when the annual Teddy Bear Picnic is, implying he is still in contact with said bears. So we know the narrator has not only been to see the bears, but has also been caught by the bears and their life has been spared (again, later). These are bears sending a
a warning, or an irresistible invitation in the form of a warning because what child would resist attending a teddy bear picnic?
Other things we know from this verse: the teddy bear picnic is held within the woods, a notoriously dangerous place for children since the dawn of
Other things we know from this verse: the teddy bear picnic is held within the woods, a notoriously dangerous place for children since the dawn of
Time and central to basically every fairytale and/or bad things happening to kids. There are two giant rules as a kid:
1. Don’t go into the fucking woods.
2. Don’t talk to strangers.
So we have our narrator telling kids not to go into the woods, but we also have the use of
1. Don’t go into the fucking woods.
2. Don’t talk to strangers.
So we have our narrator telling kids not to go into the woods, but we also have the use of
Word “surprise” instead of shock. Shock would scare kids, ward them off. Surprise makes it seem like a fun game! Kids love surprised! Kids love candy from a stranger!
This narrator knows exactly what they’re doing.
This narrator knows exactly what they’re doing.
We get the repetition of “woods” in the third line, cementing the location in our minds. And we get the most sinister part of the song: the necessity of disguise. The disguise itself is unspecified. The narrator never says to dress like a teddy bear. Ask your kids to come up with
a disguise to wear somewhere. Small children are not going to dress as a teddy bear, they’re going to dress as something that sticks out. This leads us to two questions:
1. Why must they wear (an obvious) disguise?
2. What are consequences for those who do not wear a disguise?
1. Why must they wear (an obvious) disguise?
2. What are consequences for those who do not wear a disguise?
Really this thread is an article and should be called, “Teddy Bear Picnic: An exploration into a sinister cultural difference”
Anyway. We can presume the disguise in general is to make us think the bears are doing something that humans shouldn’t see, of course. What is that, exactly? This will be addressed at a later verse.
The consequences of not attending is disguise is not addressed, but I think
The consequences of not attending is disguise is not addressed, but I think
We can make two presumptions:
1. Non-disguised children and adults do not know about the Teddy Bear Picnic, therefore posing no threat to the event. Toy Story-esque.
2. Non-disguised children are too old or too smart to be lured or overpowered by the teddy bears.
1. Non-disguised children and adults do not know about the Teddy Bear Picnic, therefore posing no threat to the event. Toy Story-esque.
2. Non-disguised children are too old or too smart to be lured or overpowered by the teddy bears.
