Kids Rock

There are some messages that can be expressed only in song. Then there are the messages that can be expressed only by the hypnotic sound of a children's chorus, which makes them ideal for singing your refrain. The results may range from legendary to awful, but one thing's for sure: There's nothing like borrowing the innocence of children to let people know how important your message is.

Not surprisingly, many of the songs tend to be about children or teens.

Related to Three Chords and the Truth. NOT to be confused with Child Popstar, in which the children themselves are the credited performers, or Kidz Bop, an example of such. Also should not be confused with the musician Kid Rock.

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Examples

Anime

• Very common in Super Robot theme songs, in this case to establish how the world's children are relying on the robot to protect them.
  • A notable example is (of course) Neon Genesis Evangelion... where the effect is batshit terrifying.
  • The original Japanese opening for UFO Robo Grendizer also use such a chorus.
• Pokémon: The Original Series: 2 B A Master.
• A chorus of children is used in most versions of the Title Theme Tune for The Mysterious Cities of Gold, modeled on the original French version, like the English or Spanish ones.
• It happens in theme songs to other anime as well. One example is Galaxy Express 999.
• Digimon Adventure 02's "Bokura no Digital World" uses a chorus of adult voice actors, but they sing the refrains in the voices of their child characters.

Films — Animation

• Wilco's "Just a Kid", justified in that it was made for The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie.

Films — Live Action

• What about that scene in Monty Python's The Meaning of Life where the kids are pouring out of cupboards and dancing in the streets singing about the importance of every sperm?
• The main theme from The Big Green has Niki Haris being backed up by a children's chorus. It's more obvious when the song plays in full over the credits.

Music

• Used to awesome effect in "I, the Swan" by the Sound of Animals Fighting.
• "You Can't Always Get What You Want" by The Rolling Stones with the London Bach Choir (children's choir).
• Pink Floyd's "Another Brick in The Wall, Part II".
• P.O.D's "Youth of the Nation".
• Story of the Year's "The Children Sing".
• XTC's song "Dear God" starts with a lone kid who sings the first stanza and the very last line.^note It's the daughter of one of Todd Rundgren's friends, but due to the video a lot of people assume it's a boy.
• Alice Cooper's "School's Out".
• Jay-Z's "Hard Knock Life (Ghetto Anthem)".
• The Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Aeroplane", featuring Flea's own daughter.
• S Club 7's "Have You Ever?".
• Justice's "[D.A.N.C.E.]".
• Daz Sampson's "Teenage Life", the abysmal UK entry to Eurovision 2006.
• "Insanity" by Oingo Boingo.
• "The Most Unwanted Song" by Komar and Melamid makes heavy use of a children's choir, having found it to be one of the least popular musical styles. Most of it is dedicated to a mix of holiday music and commercials.
  "DO ALL YOUR SHOPPING AT WAL-MART!"
• "Excerpt from a Teenage Opera" by Keith West.
• "Grandad" by Clive Dunn.
• "Grandma We Love You" by St. Winifred's School Choir.
• Scala & Kolacny Brothers' whole schtick is covering pop and rock songs with a piano and a girls' choir. Said covers include Rammstein's "Engel", Marilyn Manson's "The Beautiful People", Die Toten Hosen's "Hier Kommt Alex" and that classic by The Divinyls, "I Touch Myself".
• "My Child" by SNSD. However, it turns out that the Children's Choir that was singing the chorus was SNSD themselves.
• Marilyn Manson's "mOBSCENE". It's actually got a touch of irony to it: The line the kids repeat is "Be obscene and not heard," which is a shortened Oscar Wilde quote, "Little boys should be obscene and not heard", itself an inversion of the old admonition, "Little boys (or children) should be seen and not heard".
• Gorillaz's "Dirty Harry", featuring the children's choir San Fernandez Youth Chorus. 2D states that he was partially influenced by Sesame Street for the song.
  • Only the "clavinet keyboard rhythms" were influenced by Sesame Street.
• "God of Thunder" by KISS has Bob Ezrin's sons vocalizing during the riffs.
• Kanye West's "We Don't Care".
• French singer Francis Cabrel's "Il faudra leur dire" (not that surprising given that it was a cover of a song by a children's choir).
• "Never Forget" by Take That (Band) had a choir at the beginning and end of the version released as a single.
• "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)" by John Lennon.
• "We Are the World"
• Every song on Jesse Camp's album Jesse & The 8th Street Kids.
• "I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day" by Wizzard.
• The Carpenters' "Sing" is a particularly grating example, since it's a Cover Version of a Sesame Street song.
• Just when you think "The Christmas Shoes" couldn't possibly get any Narm-ier, it has to break out the little kids (as if we couldn't imagine the poor little urchin chatting about his dead mom already).
• "Toy Soldiers" by Martika (and later sampled by Eminem). Martika's version could also contain a "Shout-Out" to Kids Incorporated. Martika was a former cast member, and some of the background singers for this song included former co-star Stacy Ferguson (Fergie), along with later cast members Devyn Puett and (Jennifer) Love Hewitt.
• Eminem:
  • "I'm Back" has a chorus of little kids cheering "Slim Shady!" in the chorus.
  • "My Dad's Gone Crazy" has Eminem's daughter, Hailie (six at the time) singing the chorus.
  • Hailie also provides an adlib at the end of "Mosh", representing the future revolution.
• "Intervention" by Arcade Fire.
• "Who Wants to Live Forever?" by Queen.
• "Who We Are" by Machine Head opens like this. It's notable in that it's actually NOT a source of narm.
• "Stars" by Roxette. Even more noticeable there because the song is a very fast-paced dance-pop number in the verses, suddenly turning almost melancholic in the chorus.
• "We Fall, We Fall" by Dead Celebrity Status.
• Done several times by Anti-Flag on the Bright Lights of America album. Notably "You'll Get Yours".
• "Stardog Champion" by Mother Love Bone.
• "Wünsch dir Was?" by Die Toten Hosen, the Kauf MICH! version.
• Alabama did this twice. First in 1990 with "Pass It On Down", then again in 1994 with "Angels Among Us".
• "Ain't Nothin' Like", a track from Brad Paisley's Mud on the Tires album, probably takes the cake for the shrillest kids' chorus ever.
• "Last Dollar (Fly Away)" by Tim McGraw also has a mildly annoying children's chorus.
• The Decemberists' song "The Hazards of Love 3 (Revenge!)" has children singing the entirety of the song. It sounds like a nice idea, until you read the lyrics, now imagine the song with nothing but a harpsichord and off-key violin as the backing track.
• "Move Along" by the The All-American Rejects.
• Talk Talk:
  • "Happiness is Easy" features a children's choir duetting with Mark Hollis during the choruses.
  • "I Believe in You" features audio from a children's choir during the last act of the song, eventually cutting out the instruments to leave the choir's voice the only sound heard during the last few seconds.
• "Beat Kids" by Cage
• "Young" by Hollywood Undead.
• A children's choir was used on several songs Morrissey's 2006 album Ringleader of the Tormentors: "The Youngest Was the Most Loved", "The Father Who Must Be Killed" and "At Last I Am Born".
• "Unbound (The Wild Ride)" by Avenged Sevenfold (later bridge).
• Not rock, but still using this trope: Juan Luis Guerra's "Ojalá que llueva café" has a chorus of kids singing the refrain in the last third of the song.
• Doctor Steel, "Smokey's Theme".
• The chorus to Faith No More's "Be Aggressive", a song at least superficially about fellatio, has children doing a cheerleader chant of the title.
• Featured near the end of Dio's "Rock 'n' Roll Children".
• Yellowcard's "Paper Walls".
• Ray Stevens' "Everything Is Beautiful" opens with a children's chorus of "Jesus Loves the Little Children".
• "New Generation", by Scorpions, on the last chorus.
  • Also, "Moment of Glory" and "We Don't Own the World" (kind of, because the latter one features a regular adult chorus too).
• "*Fin" by Anberlin
• Yo La Tengo's Nuclear War EP consists of multiple covers of the Sun Ra song of the same name, some of which include a group of children singing backup. The effect is simultaneous funny (because it involves kids gleefully shouting "It's a motherfucker!") and a little disturbing (because, well, it involves kids singing about the threat of nuclear war).
• Generation Fade by Xavier Rudd.
• Used cheaply and shamelessly often by Thirty Seconds to Mars.
• The Cramps' "People Ain't No Good."
• OneRepublic's "Made for You" has a children's chorus sing the final verse, and "Preacher" has them sing every other line.
• Pat Benatar's "We Belong" has a children's chorus at the end.
• Quite a few songs on Tori Amos' album Night of Hunters had additional vocals by her daughters Tash and Kelsey.
• Tina Turner's "We Don't Need Another Hero" (from the Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome soundtrack). Moreover, the choir is even part of the song's lyrics ("All the children say..")
• Nightwish's album "Imaginaerium" uses a children choir in several songs
• Suede's "We Are The Pigs" ends with a group of children recruited from a theater group repeating the last lines of the song - since said lines are "we all watch them, we all watch them, we all watch them burn" and the children are backed only by the faint sounds of a hissing fire, there's a fairly eerie Ironic Nursery Rhyme effect going on.
• Blue October's "Jump Rope" has a kids chorus a little bit after the halfway point.
• "Bully" and "Cut the Cord" by Shinedown.
• The Wombats use this during the bridge of Let's Dance To Joy Division
• Geri Halliwell's "Feel the Fear" has one after the key change towards the end of the song.
• Three Dog Night's version of "Black and White" features a chorus made up of band members' kids.
• "Dom Som Försvann" and "Egoist" by the (in)famous Swedish band Kent.
• "This Too Shall Pass" (the Notre Dame Marching Band version) by OK Go features a children's chorus singing and running around the main band members waving streamers.
• John Mellencamp's version of "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus" ends with his daughter Teddi Jo (who was six years old when the song was released in 1987) singing.
• "Changes" by Faul and Wad Ad, which is Sampled Up from Pnau's song "Baby".
• The Langley Schools Music Project. In 1976 a Vancouver musician took a part-time job as an elementary school music teacher and decided to have the kids learn to sing and play cover versions of songs like "Space Oddity", "Desperado", "Rhiannon", "Band on the Run" and "Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft". They recorded a couple of vanity pressing albums that were rediscovered, released in 2001, and quickly gained a cult following. The story also loosely inspired School of Rock.
• Similar to Langley Schools, Rita Abrams was a teacher at Strawberry Point Elementary School in Marin County, California. In 1970 she recorded an album of original songs with students from her school (though not her actual class). One of the songs, "Mill Valley" (about their hometown), became a huge hit in the San Francisco Bay Area and even managed to climb to #91 on the Billboard Hot 100.
• "I Have a Dream" by ABBA features a children's choir. It's also the only song the group recorded to feature vocals by anyone other than the four members, though several of their songs use multi-tracking to give the effect of a choir. The studio version features the choir of the International School of Stockholm, but, when ABBA performed the song on tour, local children's choirs were used.
  • In 1981, band member Agnetha Faltskog released a Swedish-language album of Christmas songs which she and her daughter, Linda, had recorded the previous year but had been unable to finish in time for Christmas, resulting in its release being delayed. A similar album featuring Linda's younger brother, Christian, was released in 1987.
• Marc Almond did this in 1985, performing his song "Stories of Johnny" on early evening TV, accompanied by a boys' choir. Subverted due to the often family unfriendly subject matter (including sexual exploitation, drug use and even suicidal thoughts) contained in Marc's songs, though he has moved away from such material in his more recent recordings. "Stories of Johnny" itself is about a drug addict who is implied to die at the end.
• "Rise" by Skillet features a children's chorus singing "Rise, rise, rise and revolution" at the climax of the song.
• For their classic instrumental "Soul Finger", The Bar-Kays recruited some kids who were playing outside the Stax studio in Memphis to shout the title repeatedly. The "Mary Had a Little Lamb" riff the band plays at the beginning adds to the Kids Rock feel of the song.
• The new version of “Unity” by The Fat Rat has children singing the lyrics.
• ”Heaven Knows” by The Pretty Reckless.
  • Also by the same band, "And So It Went", a song about young people rising up in protest, features not traditional choir singing, but a group of children chanting "The world does not belong to you // You are not the king, I am not the fool // They said, the world does not belong to you // It don't belong to you // It belongs to me".
• Brazilian singer Marisa Monte has in the repeat of the last verses of "Tudo Pela Metade" a children choir singing along.

Eu falo muito bem, eu minto

Web Animation

• In Gomu's version of Okkusenman, the theme of Dr. Wily's level in Mega Man 2, the voices of children chanting "Okkusenman!" (110 Million in Japanese) helps to underscore the song's theme of childhood nostalgia.

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