But Heath had gone oddly stoic by seventh grade, his hyper cartoon faces deadened already under his ambition to become a state trooper and arrest me, which he would, and after my stories he and the math posse stared at the space in front of their crumb-flecked lips, the lenses of their eyes
adultly loose and unfocused with some kind of authentic moral consideration.
It's similar to the story itself, in which the kids behave more
adultly than the parents who are always bickering."
"Hoodoo Voodoo" I would guess Guthrie conceived as one of his many songs for children, but like the best kids' stuff, it works
adultly; a kind of list of activities and things a child might do or notice in a day (stale cheese, "slicky slacky fishy tails" - housekeeping problems, Woody?), it translates observation into a euphoric absurdism that's not too far off from rock's best trips into nonsense.