It's difficult to say goodbye, which is why it was tough to write a final piece about Caspar Babypants (Chris Ballew) on the release of his decisive CD, EASY BREEZY! It's the 19th (!) and last collection from the former frontman of Seattle's The Presidents of the United States, who turned to children's music 12 years ago and cultivated more than 360 silly, sneaky earworms over the course of his recordings (nearly one per day for a calendar year).
Ballew decided to postpone the inevitable and pushed EASY BREEZY! into 2021 (from a planned fall 2020 release). It wasn't that he just couldn't say goodbye as much as he wanted to perform some final kids' concerts and let his young listeners down in an easy breezy manner. You're not going to find tremendous social messaging on a Caspar Babypants CD. Instead, it's all about clever wordplay ("Awesome Blossom"), twanging guitars ("Spooky Baby"), genre-bending ("Caterpillar Jazz"), and kid-tastic concepts ("Put This Monkey to Bed"). Ballew even delves into his own childhood on "When I Was Little."
EASY BREEZY! offers an appropriate coda to the impressive recording history of Caspar Babypants, which curious inquires like "What If?" addressing children's questioning everything around them, "Weird Weird Dream" sharing the powers of our subconscious, and "The Ballad of the Babypants" explaining the magic powers behind a special piece of clothing.
I have to mention the five Caspar Babypants books written by Ballew and illustrated by his wife, Kate Endle. Each features a CP song that goes with the book, such as "Penguin on A Scooter." Click here for more information on the books. Ballew is shifting his musical focus to more ambient sound. His new website has a full playlist of songs.
Ballew turned to kids' music in 2008, right around the time I jumped into the fray with regular coverage of the industry. If there's ever a Hall of Fame for kid's music, I want to throw my hat into the ring to induct Caspar Babypants as a first-ballot inductee. His songs fill a sweet spot between frivolous and poignant, with a timelessness and specificity that makes him easy to identify yet hard to quantify. My younger son's class performed a dance to POTUS's "Volcano" a few years ago and it was just perfect – whatever double entendré might have been implied was consumed by the sheer fun of the selection. It's hard to say goodbye to an old friend. But with nearly 200 recorded tunes, Caspar Babypants has generated plenty of easy, breezy content that kids will enjoy for years to come.
Here is the video for the song, "Wild Wide Time":
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