Dinosaur Love Song: Why this 3-year-old’s viral song is giving us all the feels
- Published
Fenn and Tom Rosenthal
She's the three-year-old with more than three million views of her song about dinosaurs.
With the help of her dad Tom, Fenn Rosenthal's tear-jerking track has gone viral.
Tom, a professional musician himself, posted the track on his Twitter account two days ago. It's currently been re-tweeted over 48,000 times and received more than 180,000 likes.
"I thought it was a nice coherent song. It's quite sweet. But it's sods law that you would press a button go 'oh, yeah, here we go. Here comes a viral hit'."
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The 33-year-old dad says his two young daughters often come into the studio when they're a bit bored.
"They come up with the lyrics and often the tune. I just guide them into making a full song."
Tom has released five albums, but accepts that his toddler's song has become more of a hit than his own songs: "My success has always been mild. So I'm happy for her to do whatever she wants. Let's just say I'm easily beaten."
Fenn Rosenthal made up the lyrics herself
The song, Dinosaurs In Love, talks about the reptiles having a party and eating people. But it's Fenn's description of dinosaurs going extinct that has touched a lot of people.
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Fenn's dad said he wasn't surprised she wrote those lyrics because the three-year-old had been asking about what happens when people die.
"She's one of those kids who talks about it quite rationally. She talks about death quite openly."
Professor Nicola Dibben, a musicologist at the University of Sheffield, thinks this is partly why the song is so appealing: "It's whimsical. She is talking about some pretty profound things, or at least it's getting people to think about those things. And that's why it's so affecting."
The song lasts for just one minute, but Professor Dibben thinks the melody is another reason why people are engaging with it.
"They are using a pop song-like structure that we're all quite familiar with."
The father-daughter dynamic also hasn't gone unnoticed either: "It's just so lovely the way they sing together as a little duet. Her father supports her so nicely."
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- Published26 December 2019
- Published27 December 2019
