Photo: Screenshot
Beloved children's book and CD The Underwatermelon Man and other Unreasonable Rhymes is back to delight young and old, 25 years after it first surfaced.
In the late 1990s, Peter Dasent and the late Fane Flaws - long-time collaborators and bandmates in outfits like The Crocodiles - began writing children's songs.
It began with Flaws writing poems for his kids, then Dasent putting them to music, which grew into the beloved children's book and CD.
Now the book-album is getting a digital re-release.
The project started out with Flaws writing "nonsense rhymes", Dasent told RNZ's Bryan Crump.
The Underwatermelon Man resurfaces online
This audio is not downloadable due to copyright restrictions.
"Fane wrote [the rhymes] to amuse himself and his own kids, and one day, he put one of them up in front of me on the piano and said, 'write some music for this'.
"And so, we did, and just fell about laughing, because we were so pleased with ourselves, I have to say. And that little gem of an idea came into our heads, and we thought we should do a few more of these and record them."
Photo: Fane Flaws
The stories include Girl With the Porcupine Coat, Man With the Cast-Iron Belly, The Hide-and-Seeky Bird, Man With the Elephant Nose and Neville the Enchanted Rug.
Dasent says most of the singers approached were delighted to be involved in the project.
Peter Dasent, with Blackie Photo: Alex Craig
Renee Geyer, Bic Runga and Boh Runga, the Topp Twins, Jackie Clarke, Mikey Havoc, King Kapisi, Chris Knox, Dave Dobbyn, Don McGlashan of the Mutton Birds, Jenny Morris, and Neil and Tim Finn all feature.
"All of them just responded positively when they were asked. The thing is, if you ask a singer to perform on a kids' song, to sing a kids' song, they're generally going to be well disposed towards it.
"And Fane always had a great ability to match a singer with a song, he was a great talent spotter. If he needed someone for a part in a video or something, he always knew the right person to target."
The late satirist John Clarke is on one of the original recordings, Dasent says.
"He did several versions, and he took it really seriously - all comedians, all good comedians, take what they do really seriously.
"He did several takes and was really concerned that it was the right rhythm and the right vibe - which it was."
Illustration from The Underwatermelon Man Photo: Fane Flaws
The only performer to turn them down was John Rowles, he says.
The digital re-release has not been tampered with, Dasent says.
"These are all the original mixes, it's not remastered or remixed or anything, just the original ones that were put out on CD 25 years ago."
And there are still a reasonable number of unreasonable rhymes to come, he says.
Dasent tells Crump there are maybe two more albums' worth of Flaw's rhymes, that he's finally got around to setting to music.
"There's two more books worth of poems and illustrations and a whole bunch of music that's in various stages of completion."
He also wants to honour the legacy of Flaws, his long-time artistic collaborator and friend, he says.
"I miss him every day ... it's really lovely to talk to you and others about what we did all that time ago, and it's actually just made me more determined to get the rest of his work out, his legacy, because, he was a very special person, he was a very dear friend and an amazing creative artist."
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