More songs of my youth

So today was my first day back to work after four mental health days. During that time off, one of the things I did was spend a lot of time on YouTube looking at vintage clips from Sesame Street. Now I came of age when Sesame Street was just beginning to get its sea legs and some of the things on it were rather edgy and experimental.

Now stop for a minute and think: when you're three years old, you don't know what the words "edgy" or "experimental" mean, let alone do you know cutting edge educational tv when you see it. All you know is the pleasure principle, which I find myself again fighting against when I have free time and am not at work. But that's another story.

So here I am on youtube and I stumble across some listings with the title "Jazzy Spies." These were animated bits that emphasized counting up to 10, with each clip showcasing a different number. I ought to find some links to the youtube clips so you'll know what I mean. Maybe some of you will remember the melody if I can type out the phrasing:
"Onetwo three four five sixseveneight NIIIIIIIIIIIIINE Ten........"
And the animation always ended with 10 spies opening their coats w/each one having a number from 1 - 10. And the featured number showed up in all these weird scenes while the woman singing would kind of wail like Patty Waters or someone like that.

And dig this: the woman singing was Grace Slick! Ms. Counterculture was melting our minds with her heavy wailing about numbers.

There was another animated bit about the letter O and it's so fragmented and nonsensical, but you know what --- I knew 90% of the lyrics to the song all these years later because it was a risky piece of art that didn't kowtow to convention.

It's been a couple days since I've looked at this stuff but it's had a really positive impact on me. Meaning, it's made me happy. Kind of like meeting a friend you haven't seen in 10 years and in that time you've wondered if they thought you were a jerk only to find out that they really care about you. Maybe that's not a good metaphor. OK I'll be literal. It's nice to know that these stuff isn't totally lost to the ages or that I didn't just imagine it.