Old McDonald

Why are children's songs so frightening? Is it the child's mind that makes them so? Old McDonald had a farm. Who old? Is farming an appropriate career for an old man? Why not make him young? I imagine a senile, decrepit codger wandering forgetfully around many overgrown acres looking for animals that moo and cluck at him from the tall weeds. A cluck cluck here and a cluck cluck there, here a cluck there a cluck everywhere a cluck cluck. Old McDonald stumbles through the bushes. A duck hiding there quacks as he goes by, frightening him. The old man falls, breaks a hip. Moo moo quack quack bark bark baa baa. He struggles on the ground, surrounded by a cacophony of animal noises. E-i-e-i-o. And suddenly, they are upon him.