WHAT DID I listen to growing up What did ...

My older daughters grew up with Sesame Street, and I sang to them in their early years-until they asked me to shut up-but I never found much "children's music" I wanted to keep hold of. My youngest daughter survived the era of Raffi (who made me heave) and similar feel-good hooey. But I've run across a few unlikely heroes of kid's music. Here are three.

Woody Guthrie wrote more than 1000 songs by recent count, largely anthems, talking blues and leftist protest, but he also turned out the most childlike children's songs ever written. The tunes are all much the same and the lyrics are repetitive, but what glows is their innocence. These aren't just songs written for four-year-olds-they sound like they were written by a four-year-old. "My Yellow Crayon" has a vocabulary of maybe 25 words, but if you just listen, let loose and drift, this is how a kid looks at lending out his limited possessions.

"Don't You Push Me Down" ("You can even laugh at me/But don't you push me down") comes right out of a playground conversation. "Car Song" ("Trees and houses walk along/?Truck and car and a garbage can/Take you riding in my car"), complete with mouth sound effects, is the ultimate travel singalong. "My Dolly" ("I put my dolly's hat on/And she looks like this") is a touchingly unlikely piece from a grown Midwestern male. Woody's comments, included in the CD notes, reflect his faith in the lessons adults can learn from children.

The Robert Minden Ensemble came down from Canada to the Philadelphia Children's Festival more than a decade ago to put on The Boy Who Wanted to Talk to Whales. The "you can make music on anything" movement was young, attracting people who liked to beat on unlikely objects, but Minden had the ear and the touch. Using tin cans, lengths of PVC pipe, vacuum-cleaner hoses, conch shells, Slinkies and something like a water-filled hubcap with spikes, the Ensemble made eerie, ethereal sounds that wound around, behind and into Minden's narrated story. The kids listening were entranced. So were Linda and I.

The real high point for me in children's music was the Australian husband and wife team of Mike and Michelle Jackson. They released only one tape I know of, Playmates. Ours disappeared somewhere on a trip to Michigan-our biggest musical loss ever. The Jacksons no longer perform, and I could find only two mentions on the web-with no leads to the tape. It's simple stuff, some folk standards, some of their own material ("Bananas in pajamas/Are coming down the stairs"), snippets of doggerel-whatever struck their fancy, some 34 short items, as I recall. Michelle's voice is soft, clear and reassuring without being icky. Mike's is tight, snappy, friendly with a tiny wiseass undercurrent. What makes it work is their unerring taste and a no-holds-barred sense of children's interests.

A couple of my favorites: a parody of the Australian kookaburra song ("Kookaburra sits on the electric wire/Tears in his eyes and his pants on fire") and a superbly wicked chant ("Piggy on the railroad/ Picking up stones/ Along comes the engine/ Breaks Piggy's bones./ 'Oh,' says Piggy/ 'That's not fair.'/ 'Oh,' says the engine driver/ 'I don't care'").

What's Out There: Amazon.com has the Minden Ensemble CD and Woody's Nursery Days-but don't get son Arlo and family's version. As for the Jacksons?if anyone, anywhere, can find Playtime for me, I'll love you forever.