Bing Crosby: Swinging on a Star

Last night, one of my piano students chose "Swinging on a Star" as her "challenge" piece for the month. I've always loved this song. I remember singing it in the car with my siblings, cracking up at the depictions of the animals. My brother and I would always point to each other meaningfully when we got to the lines, "All the monkeys are in the zoo, every day you see quite a few."

"Swinging on a Star" was written for the movie Going My Way (which I highly recommend) with Bing Crosby. According to wikepedia, the song came about over dinner:

Song writer Jimmy Van Heusen was at Crosby’s house one evening for dinner, and to discuss a song for the movie Going My Way. During the meal one of the children began complaining about how he didn’t want to go to school the next day. The singer turned to his son and said to him, “If you don’t go to school, you might grow up to be a mule. Do you wanna do that?”

 Here's Bing singing "Swinging on a Star" with the boys from the movie: