Before Eddie Rabbitt planned a children’s album, he was making up songs for his own kids at bedtime. They asked him to sing the same ones again, so he had to remember the words—silly rhymes and stories about animals that had begun as casual inventions at home.
That private material came up in a 1996 interview ahead of Rabbitt’s engagement at John Ascuaga’s Nugget in Sparks, Nevada. Though his career included more than two dozen No. 1 country records and songs recorded by Elvis Presley and Ronnie Milsap, he spent part of the interview demonstrating the children’s songs and talking about a record for young listeners.
Rabbitt also imagined taking the project onstage. If families responded to the album, he said he could see performing afternoon shows, perhaps at three or four o’clock—a schedule intended to suit children rather than the usual evening crowd. The idea was already in motion before he learned he had cancer.
A project conceived at home
Doctors diagnosed Rabbitt with lung cancer in March 1997. He received radiation treatment and underwent surgery to remove part of his left lung. He continued recording, and his adult-country album Beatin’ the Odds came out that September.
The children’s record followed in April 1998. Songs from Rabbittland gathered 17 songs, jokes and stories he had developed while his children were growing up. Its tracks included “Andrew the Squirrel,” “Puppy,” “Woodchuck” and “Can You Tell Me a Story.” Some were brief sketches; others used animal characters and bedtime rhymes. Rabbitt produced the album and sang, with guitars, keyboards and sound effects among the arrangements.
There were no singles from the collection. It was not built for country radio, and its short tracks did not try to turn family jokes into conventional adult-country songs. Rabbitt addressed his young listeners as “Mr. Eddie,” preserving the informal feel of the material.
Rabbitt died in Nashville on May 7, 1998, at 56, only weeks after the album’s release. His family kept his final decline private, and news of his death was announced after his burial at their request.
The timing can make Songs from Rabbittland seem like a farewell planned in the shadow of his illness. But Rabbitt had spoken about making the children’s record in 1996, before his diagnosis. The songs came from years of bedtime requests, not from a project conceived as his life was ending. His final studio album begins with a nine-second track called “Hi Kids.”
