I’ve always thought “I Know an Old Lady (who swallowed a fly)” was a little creepy. I could picture something like an old witch living in a cabin in the forest (like in Cinderella), shuffling around and swallowing live insects for no apparent reason. Then swallowing birds, cats, and anything else she can catch.
The whole point was to make the current victim animal chase and presumably kill the previously swallowed animal… but no mention of how they were to get back out of her stomach… so she was in essence banishing all these innocent animals to a small Hell in her belly where they needed to kill something and then be killed themselves.
And then the old lady just dies and the song ends. Uhhhhhhm, ok… let me think about all that while I try to fall asleep.
This modern kid’s song isn’t exactly spooky, but disturbing. My daughters asked me to play it on my phone during dinner a couple years back; at that time I didn’t remember seeing the “death and suicide” warnings at the beginning.
