INCHWORM
Inchworm, inchworm
Measuring the marigolds
You and your arithmetic
You'll probably go far
You're never too young or old to be introduced to a song and today I was stopped suddenly in my tracks by the algorithm Gods of Spotify when 'Inchworm' by Danny Kaye came up on my song suggestion list which instantly took me back to a day, not so long ago, when my late father insisted on playing it to me for the first time with all the enthusiasm of a child.
I can't remember the exact reason the topic of Danny Kaye had come up in the conversation but if I know anything about my dad it would have had something to do with something existential and esoteric, possibly Buddhist or Orphic related. Orpheus especially had been on his mind before he became seriously ill and he had been looking at reviving a cultural development scheme of his based on the ancient Greek myth and its connections to the local area in the guise of a Roman pavement 1700 years old. Something possibly about how the God of Music would sing to all animals, and no doubt insects, was about the gist of our conversation in much the same way Kaye does with the little inchworm in the 1952 movie biopic about the king of the fairytales, Hans Christian Andersen. My dad would have been ten years old when the film came out and no doubt it probably made some profound impression on him the way things do when you're young and the mind is untethered by conventional thinking.
Ah then, maybe that was it.
Listening more intently to the lyrics by Frank Loesser this afternoon I have a feeling perhaps he was playing me the song to illustrate a point about how people devoted to logic and reason often fail to remember to observe the beauty in things when they're so busy measuring things with scientific formula. The inchworm analogy often came up when describing those stuck in the dualistic porridge of conventional thinking. I'm pretty sure he accused me of being an inchworm once or twice when using conventional measurements of reality and forgetting the ultimate view he so clearly wanted me to understand better. The concern for him was always that I, like so many others, would get mired in believing things are simply the way they appear when he knew they were so much more than that.
So in this instance, my father was Danny Kaye and I was the inchworm.
Playing the song today, I think I may have finally remembered to admire the marigolds.
Inchworm, inchworm (two and two are four)
Measuring the marigolds (four and four are eight)
Seems to me, you'd stop and see (eight and eight are sixteen)
How beautiful they are (sixteen and sixteen are thirty-two)
In June 1953 Loesser received a handwritten letter, dated “Now”, with no return address.
Dear Loesser, your song ‘Inchworm’ makes me very happy; not only from an inchwormitarian point of view (I know you must realize that people will not be so repelled by us after this) but from the aspect of downright beauty. It is conceivable that if Robert Burns and the god Pan, and Antoine de St. Exupery, and Euclid had gotten together for three days and three nights they might have been able to write almost equally good words, but as I see it no group of musicians nor any other one musician could have written the beautiful music. It is simple, yet it is so intricate, the harmony is perfect and the counterpoint — well it just gives me a headache when I think of what it would be like to try to write it tho I suppose for you it was easy.
I’d like to send you a leaf or something in appreciation of the delight your song has given me, but since that probably wouldn’t be the correct thing to do, I’ll close by promising you that after this I’ll try to admire the marigolds. Respectfully, a Kansas inchworm. (Please excuse the writing. It is not a customary practice, and besides, my back has been aching a little today. Have been following my hunches a little too often lately.
Loesser noticed that the letter bore a postmark from Lawrence, Kansas. His secretary found the local newspaper with the widest readership, the Daily Journal World, and Loesser placed a five inch square advertisement.
INCHWORM
F.L. SAYS
THANKS FOR
THE LETTER
The mystery sender replied with a telegram which read: “GRATITUDE GRATEFULLY AND HAPPILY RECEIVED”. A follow-up letter explained that the author was Emily Preyer, a kindergarten teacher and daughter of a piano tutor.
“I have always made up stories for the children, so when I knew I had to write to you about “Inchworm” I just made up a story for you,” she wrote. “Your ‘thanks’ in our paper was one of the nicest things that ever happened to me.”
From BeatlesBible.Com