How 'Bout A Moose: A Song History

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"How 'Bout A Moose" appears, in DAD tuning, in Mike Anderson's Songs For Kids, a 60-page Fingers Of Steel book of 24 songs that young children enjoy, set in easy arrangements; the book's listing says the selection draws on his decades of teaching kindergarten.[1] His DulcimerDownloads biography calls him a Midwestern folk entertainer who hosted a national award-winning children's television show and who, as a third-grade teacher, received recognition as an outstanding Illinois educator.[2] The listing credits composers for two of the book's songs but names none for this one, and the sources consulted here do not establish who wrote it or where it comes from.[1][2]

Color trade card of a bull moose with broad antlers standing in a green landscape, labeled Moose

Allen & Ginter, Moose, from the Quadrupeds series (N21) for Allen & Ginter Cigarettes, commercial color lithograph, 1890. Shown for its subject; it has no connection to the song.

As for the title's animal, Yellowstone National Park describes the moose as the largest member of the deer family in the park, with bulls weighing close to 1,000 pounds and adults standing 5½ to 7½ feet at the shoulder.[3] Males and females alike are long-legged, which lets them swim, run at speed and cross rivers and deep snow, and in the park they feed chiefly on willow leaves and twigs.[3]

Our book that contains the song "How 'Bout A Moose"

Sources

  1. Fingers Of Steel: "Mike Anderson, Songs For Kids".
  2. DulcimerDownloads: "Mike Anderson".
  3. National Park Service, Yellowstone National Park: "Moose".
  4. Image: Allen & Ginter, Moose, from the Quadrupeds series (N21) for Allen & Ginter Cigarettes, commercial color lithograph, 1890. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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