If you listened carefully to our “3 minutes more or less” summary of The Sesame Street Record, you might notice that there was one final track in that that’s not in our Spotify Playlist. That’s because the original release of The Sesame Street Record was an LP, on a vinyl record with two sides. The final track had Gordon (played by Matt Robinson) and the gang saying goodbye to the listener but not before helpfully giving their child audience instructions on how to take the needle off the record, flip over the record to Side 1 and start all over again.
That track was deleted as we moved into the age of CDs and digital downloads (and eventually each side of The Sesame Street Record was used to create a separate volume of Sesame Street 1), but thanks to the internet, you can still listen to that final track in all its glory here (we have it all queued up hopefully):
(And of course if you want to hear the whole record played on vinyl, you can listen to all of it just by going back to the start!)
As you can see from the track listing here on the original record, this was never an “actual” track on the album, but you can definitely see the groove for it. — that thin patch just before the very end.
Incidentally, that album is Graeme’s own. He still has the copy of The Sesame Street Record that was played on his parents’ hi-fi system in the 1970s. Talk about albums with deep meaning!
Enjoying the podcast immensely, and with this episode, you’ve hit on one of my great passions, namely the Muppets and their associated music. For further listening from this time period of Sesame Street records, I’d recommend the Bert and Ernie Sing Along album, which mixes “traditional” kids’ songs and Sesame Street numbers, along with great character interactions throughout from the entire cast as they all pile into Bert and Ernie’s bathroom for a sing along at Ernie’s invitation (while Bert is taking a bath). It does include a versio of “What’s the Name of That Song” among the tracks.
Also worth checking out are The Count Counts, where the Count does a Casey Kasem-style top 12 countdown as a radio DJ, and Merry Christmas from Sesame Street, where the standout track on side 2 is David’s “The Night Before Christmas on Sesame Street,” delivered as a jazzy proto-rap by Northern Calloway.
Keep up the great work!
All the Best,
Drew Walko
Thanks so much Drew! I was kind of disappointed in the version of “What’s the Name” from Bert and Ernie’s Sing Along, but I like a lot of other tracks from it. I have never heard the Night Before Christmas on Sesame Street — I really should check that out. More Northern Calloway is a good thing!