3 Songs You Didn’t Know John Lithgow Wrote for Children

With a career spanning more than 50 films since his debut in the 1972 comedy Dealing: Or the Berkeley-to-Boston Forty-Brick Lost-Bag Blues, John Lithgow has taken on roles from the dramatic to the more peculiar throughout his career.

Along with playing the transsexual ex-football player in the 1981 drama The World According to Garp, which earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor, or the gently naive banker Sam Burns in Terms of Endearment, Lithgow also became a maniacal alien dictator in the 1984 action film The Adventures of Buckaroo Bonzai Across the 8th Dimension, a man with a split personality in Raising Cain, the dysfunctionally paternal Dick Solomon on the hit television series 3rd Rock from the Sun, and even a menacing serial killer on the hit series Dexter.

Since the early ’70s, Lithgow has also had a prolific career on stage, winning his first Tony Award for The Changing Room in 1973 and a second in 2002 for Sweet Smell of Success. For more than four decades he has also voiced characters, including the Star Wars character Yoda in the 1983 radio adaptation of The Empire Strikes Back and again in 1996 for Return of the Jedi, along with the animated films Shrek, Rugrats in Paris: The Movie, and more.

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Lithgow also sang on the soundtracks for films Interstellar, Pitch Perfect 3, Spellbound, and more.

By the late ’90s and early 2000s, Lithgow expanded into the children’s genre. Along with releasing more than a dozen children’s books since The Remarkable Farkle McBride in 2000, the actor also released Singin’ in the Bathtub, a collection of kid-friendly classics, in 1999, followed by Farkle & Friends in 2002, and 2006 release The Sunny Side of the Street, which both featured songs written by Lithgow.

“There’s something about kids responding to a song that’s so exhilarating,” said Lithgow in 2007. “They give themselves over to laughter in a way I’ve only achieved a few times in my life with adults.

Here’s a look behind just three songs Lithgow has had a hand in writing throughout his career.

“I Got Two Dogs” (2002)

Written by John Lithgow

Just three years after releasing his debut children’s album Singin’ in the Bathtub, Lithgow released Farkle and Friends, which accompanied his 2000 book The Remarkable Farkle McBride. The album featured the Bill Elliott Swing Orchestra and actress and singer Bebe Neuwirth, along with a cover of Irving Berlin‘s 1936 song “I’d Rather Lead a Band,” and five narrative and musical pieces Lithgow wrote, including the playful sing-along “I Got Two Dogs.”

I got two dogs
Fanny and Blue
I walk ’em in the evening
And the morning dew
Fanny’s real small
Blue’s midsize
Not the kinda dogs that would ever win a prize
But they’re happy
And they’re huggy
And they stick like glue

Oh, There’s nothing I’d trade
For my Fanny and Blue
(There’s nothing I’d trade
For my Fanny and Blue)

I got two dogs
Fanny and Blue
The little one’s twelve
And the big one’s two
Fanny’s kind of slow
Blue’s real quick
Neither of them ever learned a single trick
But they’re always there to greet you
When your day is through

“On the Sunny Side of the Street,” Featuring Madeleine Petroux (2006)

Written by John Lithgow, Dorothy Fields, and Danny McHugh

In 2006, Lithgow’s third children’s album The Sunny Side of the Street featured guest vocalists Madeleine Peyroux, cabaret singer Maude Maggart, and Seinfeld star Wayne Knight (Newman). The album revisited a song by Sylvia Fine, including her 1959 song “Lullaby in Ragtime,” first recorded by Danny Kaye and Louis Armstrong in 1959 and later covered by Harry Nilsson, and Honeymooners star Art Carney’s “Song of the Sewer,” and more along with a collection of songs Lithgow wrote. The spoken word and musical title track is centered around looking at the brighter side of a situation.

Lunchbox, pencil case
Backpack, all in place
Brand new sneakers and clothing!
All dressed up for first-grade
Way too shy and afraid
Mom, on bended knee
Right in front of me
Looked right into my eyes
All my worry blew away
When she taught me how to say

Grab your coat and get your hat
Leave your worries on the doorstep
Just direct your feet
To the sunny side of the street
Can’t you hear a pitter-pat?
And that happy tune that’s your step
Life can be so sweet
On the sunny side of the street

I used to walk in the shade
With my blues on paradе
Now I’m not afraid
Because Rover’s crossеd over
If I never have a cent
I’d be rich as Rockefeller
Gold dust at my feet
On the sunny side of the street

“Inka Dinka Doo,” Featuring Wayne Knight (2006)

Written by John Lithgow; original lyrics by Jimmy Durante and Ben Ryan

For The Sunny Side of the Street, Lithgow updated the 1933 Jimmy Durante song “Inka Dinka Doo,” and updated and made it his own for a duet with Seinfeld actor Wayne Knight.

What is that haunting refrain that I hear in the air?
Here and then there, everywhere
It’s such a beautiful strain that keeps taunting my brain constantly
It’s my melody, it’s my symphony

Inka dinka doo, a dinka dee, a dinka doo
Oh, what a tune for crooning
Inka dinka doo, a dinka dee, a dinka doo
It’s got the whole world spooning

Eskimo bells up in Iceland, keep ringin’
They’ve made their own Paradise Land, singin’
Inka dinka doo, a dinka dee, a dinka doo
Give me that inka dinka dee, a dinka doo

When it was originally released in the ’30s, “Inka Dinka Doo” made its debut in the 1934 film Palooka about the comic Joe Palooka, which starred Durante and Lupe Vélez. The song was later covered by Sammy Davis, Jr., Ann-Margret, Chet Atkins, and more.

Photo: James Sorensen/NBC/NBCU