Bold statement: a child’s spontaneous imagination is turning ordinary songs into worldwide emotional moments, and it challenges what we expect from a pop hit. But here’s where it gets controversial: is the real magic in the melodies, or in the tenderness of listening with full attention to a toddler’s thoughts?
‘I love you twenty-sixty times’: how lyrics written by a three-year-old became tear-inducing viral hits
I was listening to the latest Stephen Spencer track when suddenly tears welled up. Was it the falsetto, the swirling harmonies, or something deeper? It was the lyrics: “What did Apple-the-Stoola say? He said ‘I love you’ twenty-sixty times.”
Spencer collaborates with a very young co-writer: his three-year-old daughter. Over four months, he has posted short songs online inspired by her stream-of-consciousness stories. There’s a smooth soul piece about “a regular rabbit, who has regular ponytails just like me.” There’s Funchy the Snow-woman, a track that could slot into a 1975 album, yet carries a playful line about using a litter tray in the forest. And a festive number about a Christmas cat named Harda Tarda, who hopes that Taja (a “funny way to say Santa”) will bring her “a doggy, a puppy and a ninja-bread man.”
When Spencer began sharing these songs, he had 36 followers—barely more than a personal audience for his mom and her book club. Today, he has over 250,000 followers, and his mini songs have been played about 23 million times on Instagram and 5 million times on TikTok. Fans have even urged him to expand these micro-masterpieces into full-length album tracks. He’s cautious about “stretching” them in ways that could spoil the captured magic, but there are plans for longer-form releases, including a Spotify drop of Regular Rabbit this week.
On first listen, the songs feel funny and endearing, a warm balm amid global noise. Yet they’re also undeniably catchy. Spencer, who once played in a funk band in Ottawa and now teaches composition and music theory at Hunter College in New York City, has a knack for crafting hooks that stick. The question remains: why do we cry? That reaction seems to come as a surprise even to him.
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“I think the songs resonate with parents of children who are no longer three,” Spencer explains via video call. “There’s something fleeting about those first few years. I’ve always sensed a desire to bottle that moment because it will disappear soon. Music is my way of preserving it.”
That perspective rings true for many listeners. My own daughter is nine now, and while she still writes charming stories, her surreal character names and dreamlike plots have given way to more straightforward ideas. Listening to Spencer’s songs conjures up that dizzying toddler period in an instant.
But the impact seems to reach beyond nostalgia. Spencer, now 35, has spotted another surprising reaction: the humor that arises from pairing his meticulous seriousness with his daughter’s playful flights of fancy. His delivery—singing earnestly about a dinosaur named Pasghetti, as if reciting a serious ballad—evokes comparisons to Flight of the Conchords. Yet he’s discovered that many listeners experience the work as an act of love: listening intently to a child, being careful to understand, and choosing words thoughtfully without judgment or correction—that intention is deeply moving for many.
Fans also appreciate the small choices that give the songs’ characters a sense of realism. People notice that the creatures in the stories “go” somewhere rather than “goed” somewhere, or that a character doesn’t “flied” instead of “flew.” Spencer notes that some listeners connect with the material because they themselves were not fully listened to as children.
The comment section on Instagram (@_stephenspencer) can be as touching as the music. One post about Apple-the-Stoola—the apple-man who gains wings to fly away and find his lost mum—reads: “I wish I could still tell my Mom I love you twenty-sixty times. She ‘flied away’ nine years ago. So if you still have a mom in your life, tell her ‘I love you’ twenty-sixty times.”
Spencer doesn’t reveal his daughter’s name, and he suggests that this choice isn’t accidental. He picks phrases from her stories that seem rich with meaning and uses them as chorus refrains. In the Christmas cat track, Santa promises to deliver “I’ll give you everything.” Watching him sing with closed eyes, you realize the words are coming from him, but they are also a quiet, personal message back to his daughter.
He isn’t just playing with genre labels. Critics compare the production to yacht rock and other breezy, late-70s styles, yet Spencer’s main influences are jazz and classical music. In his theory classes, he notes how Beethoven often modulates to foreign keys in development sections; he tries to translate that same sophistication into pre-choruses and bridges.
Does the growing audience add pressure to something that began with pure spontaneity? “I have to forget about that,” he says, “because what makes them work is the simple idea of hanging out with my daughter and not taking life too seriously.”
The songs typically come together over a couple of afternoons. Spencer records his daughter’s stories on his phone and may return later for a line tweak if a verse needs one more syllable. It’s a genuine collaboration. So what does his lyricist think of the outcome? “It’s a bit disappointing as an answer,” he jokes, “but from what I can tell, she couldn’t care less. She’s more focused on the process than the product.”
A true artist, indeed. “Exactly. I’ve told her 20 million people have listened, but that number doesn’t really matter to her. Put differently: she thinks I’m seven.”
