With almost 25,000 followers on Twitter and nearly twice that on Instagram, musician Tom Rosenthal is no stranger to social media.
But when the singer-songwriter’s most recent Twitter post went viral, it owed more to his three-year-old daughter than his own creativity.
As Rosenthal prepares to head off on a European tour, his daughter Fenn is having her own moment in the spotlight, with a song she dreamed up about tragically doomed dinosaurs getting played more than half a million times.
“Dinosaurs in love” is Fenn’s first solo creation, according to her father, who regularly encourages her and older sister, Bess, 6, to compose their own melodies.
He tweeted: “Fenn, my nearly 4 year old daughter, recorded her first ever solo song today. She came up with all the words herself and I helped her a little bit with the tune. It’s called ‘Dinosaurs in Love’.”
The lyrics – which start on a high note but end with extinction – were purely her own creation, Rosenthal says. She sings:
Dinosaurs eating people
Dinosaurs in love
Dinosaurs having a party
They eat fruit and cucumber
They fell in love
They say ‘thank you’
A big bang came
And they died
Dinosaurs dinosaurs fell in love
But they didn’t say goodbyyye
But they didn’t say Good Bye
Rosenthal describes himself musically as “just a man singing songs in a fun, indie style,” while his children usually knock out ditties about animals.
“I just let them go wild with whatever is happening,” he told CNN.
Previous songs conjured up by his two girls include: “Tigers in the forest,” “zebras in the zoo” and “elephants have a little nap.”
“I think she’s got a really good sense of timing,” Rosenthal said of Fenn, adding that he wasn’t that surprised by the song’s popularity because it’s so “evocative.”
Nevertheless, success has not gone to Fenn’s head.
“She can just about count to 20 so she doesn’t really get it if I say that half a million people have listened to the song,” said Rosenthal.
“I told her that her grandma liked it and she wasn’t that fussed about that. She enjoyed doing it, she listened to it when it was done and then she was gone.”
Rosenthal is not overly surprised that his daughters’ “silly songs” are popular with his fans, considering one of his own numbers is called “Big Pot of Hummus.”
“I do plenty of serious songs as well,” he told CNN. “I like having a bit of a range.”