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Unpackyouradjectives
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The small boy giggles at his sibling, who is tall.

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The tall girl stomps on her sibling, who is small.

"Unpack Your Adjectives" is a song from Grammar Rock. It talks about how an adjective describes a noun, and it is sung in the perspective of a young camper who has a big orange bag full of adjectives. It was written by George Newall and sung by Blossom Dearie (who also performed "Figure Eight" and some verses on "Mother Necessity").

Music video[]

A young girl and her turtle friend go camping in the forest, using adjectives to describe people, places and things they encounter. Also features a scene where a tall girl grows taller and her sibling, who is small, shrinks smaller and giggles as he shrinks, before the girl stomps on him. The scene where turtle morphs into a bear and two students feel dumb and brainy.

Lyrics[]

Blossom Dearie: Got home from camping last spring.
Saw people, places and things.
We barely had arrived,
Friends asked us to describe
The people, places and every last thing.
So we unpacked our adjectives.

I unpacked "frustrating" first.
Reached in and found the word "worst".
Then I picked "soggy" and
Next I picked "foggy" and
Then I was ready to tell them my tale.
'Cause I'd unpacked my adjectives.

Adjectives are words you use to really describe things,
Handy words to carry around.
Days are sunny, or they're rainy
Boys are dumb or else they're brainy
Adjectives can show you which way.

Adjectives are often used to help us compare things,
To say how thin, how fat, how short, how tall.
Girls who are tall can get taller,
Boys who are small can get smaller,
Till one is the tallest
Another's the smallest of all.

We hiked along without care.
Then we ran into a bear.
He was a hairy bear,
He was a scary bear,
We beat a hasty retreat from his lair.
And described him with adjectives.

Bob Dorough, spoken: Whoah! Boy! That was one big, ugly bear!

Blossom Dearie, spoken: You can even make adjectives out of the other parts of speech, like verbs or nouns.
All you have to do is tack on an ending like "-ic" or "-ish" or "-ary".
For example, this boy can grow up to be a huge man – but still have a boyish face.
"Boy" is a noun, but the ending "-ish" makes it an adjective: "boyish".
That describes the huge man's face. Get it?

Next time you go on a trip,
(YAWN)
Remember this little tip:
The minute you get back,
They'll ask you this and that.
You can describe people, places, and things.
Simply unpack your adjectives.

You can do it with adjectives.
Tell 'em 'bout it with adjectives.
You can shout it with adjectives.

Trivia[]

  • This was George Newall's first composition for the series.
  • The turtle is voiced by Bob Dorough and the Backpack Girl is voiced by Blossom Dearie.
  • In this song, Dorough recorded on a demo version, before being replaced by Blossom Dearie on the song's final cut. (But Dorough still does the voice of the turtle.)
  • This cartoon was likely animated by Sal Faillace. Faillace was one of three animators at Kimmelman who worked on this series (the other two were Dante Barbetta and Jack Schnerk). Assistants included Larry Riley, Michael Sporn, and Tony Creazzo.
  • In the Grammar Rock PC Game by Creative Wonders, the turtle is referred to as a tortoise.
  • Became instrumental, the beginning and end of this version of the song was used in the "Stay Tuned" bumpers on all four volumes of the 25th Anniversary collection VHS tapes.

Covers[]

The song was covered by Daniel Johnston for Schoolhouse Rock! Rocks, and it is on track 14.

In 2023, The Muppets covered the song on the Schoolhouse Rock! 50th Anniversary Singalong special.

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