Inchworm (song)

"Inchworm", also known as "The Inch Worm", is a song originally performed by Danny Kaye in the 1952 film Hans Christian Andersen. It was written by Frank Loesser.

Lyrics

The song's lyrics express a carpe diem sentiment, with the singer noting that the inchworm of the title has a "business-like mind", and is blind to the beauty of the flowers it encounters:

Two and two are four
Four and four are eight
That’s all you have on your business-like mind
Two and two are four
Four and four are eight
How can you be so blind?

Subsequent verses include the lines "Measuring the marigolds, you and your arithmetic / You’ll probably go far" and "Seems to me you’d stop and see / How beautiful they are"

Loesser wrote a counterpoint chorus that, sung by itself, has become popular as a children's song because of its arithmetical chorus:

Two and two are four
Four and four are eight
Eight and eight are sixteen
Sixteen and sixteen are thirty-two

In the film, a children's chorus sings the contrapuntal "arithmetic" section over and over inside a small classroom, dolefully and by rote, while Andersen, listening just outside, gazes at an inchworm crawling on the flowers and sings the main section of the song. Loesser loved the intellectual challenge of such contrapuntal composition, which he also did in other works such as Tallahassee.[1]

Reception

The composer received a fan letter (signed pseudonymously, "Your respectfully, a Kansas inchworm") which said of the song:

...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...

Loesser was so touched by the letter that he placed a large advertisement in the largest newspaper in Lawrence, Kansas — the Daily Journal World — in thanks. His correspondent wrote again, revealing herself to be teacher Emily Preyer.[1][2]

Recorded versions

Inchworm has been recorded by many singers, including Paul McCartney, David Bowie, Rachelle Ferrell, The Brothers Creeggan, Anne Murray, Kenny Loggins, We Five, John Lithgow, Mary Hopkin, Doris Day, Dan Zanes, Kurt Wagner and Patricia Barber. Performed instrumentally, it was a regular feature of the John Coltrane Quartet's repertoire and appears on the album Coltrane.

David Bowie said[3] the song was the inspiration behind his 1980 song "Ashes to Ashes":

Ashes To Ashes wouldn’t have happened if it hadn’t have been for Inchworm. There’s a nursery rhyme element in it, and there’s something so sad and mournful and poignant about it. It kept bringing me back to the feelings of those pure thoughts of sadness that you have as a child, and how they’re so identifiable even when you’re an adult.

Use in film and television

References
  1. Thomas Laurence Riis (2008-01-28), Frank Loesser, pp. 66–69, ISBN 978-0-300-11051-7
  2. Susan Loesser (2000-09-01), A most remarkable fella, p. 130, ISBN 978-0-634-00927-3
  3. DeMain, Bill. "How David Bowie returned to orbit and made Scary Monsters". Classic Rock Magazine. Retrieved Sep 23, 2020.


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