Back in third grade, around 1987, a teacher taught us two songs—Joy to the World and a funky little tune called Shoeflies. It was catchy, quirky, and unlike any other kids’ song I’d heard. It stuck with me.
Over the years, most of the lyrics faded, but fragments stayed in my head: “Shoeflies faster than me, I gotta run, run, run...” I started searching for it in the late ’90s when I first got internet access, but found nothing. Eventually, I started to wonder if I’d imagined the whole thing.
Then one day, I found a few online mentions—people quoting the same lines I remembered. That gave me hope. I decided to dig deeper, starting with the music textbooks that might’ve been used in schools back then. Silver Burdett kept coming up as a major publisher, so I focused there—especially on records that included Joy to the World, since I remembered learning both songs together.
After searching through old teacher guides and music archives, I finally found a Silver Burdett teacher’s book that mentioned Shoeflies—complete with sheet music and a composer credit to Bob Sakayama. My husband, who makes music, helped me transcribe it so I could hear the melody again. But I still longed to hear the original funky version I remembered.
Looking into Sakayama’s work led me to the educational TV show Vegetable Soup, which aired in the mid-1970s. I discovered he had trademarked Shoeflies in 1972 under a company called Earthling Corp. That led me to YouTube, where I started watching old episodes of Vegetable Soup uploaded by kind archivists over the years.
And finally, in 2025, I found it: the episode where Bob Sakayama performs the full version of Shoeflies, complete with the original instruments and that unmistakable groove. After decades of searching, it was right there—and just as joyful and strange as I remembered.
Bob, at 7 minutes and 28 seconds solving the whole mystery.
After finding the episode, I felt like I had to say thank you. I tracked down an email address and reached out to Bob Sakayama directly, not really expecting a response. But to my surprise, he wrote back.
He was kind and generous, and he told me Shoeflies was one of the first songs he sold to Silver Burdett. Unfortunately, his own copies of the song had been lost during a studio renovation years ago. He confirmed that the Vegetable Soup video was the only version he knew to still exist.
Bob also shared some of the other songs he’d written for his children, and gave me links to his music projects over the years, including work on the Growler series. It was such a full-circle moment—getting to connect with the person behind the song that had lived rent-free in my head since childhood.
One of the problems I’ve found is that they’ve misprinted the lyrics in multiple education materials watching Bob sing the song I hear it is - — - - I gotta run run run or I won’t SEE IT - and when the man says “fit my foot” but the book says “I won’t sit” and “dig my foot” which makes no sense. So I’ve gone with what bob is singing and when I see as the actual lyrics, though some people may have been taught the wrong lyrics.
Shoeflies
Words and music by Bob Sakayama
© 1972 Earthling Music. Printed by Silver Burdett Company.
Verse 1
Shoeflies faster than me,
I gotta run, run, run,
or I won’t see it.
And when the man says,
“Fit my foot,”
Shoeflies.
Verse 2
Dominoes more than I do,
and there’s a chance
that he may really
even know more than you,
And when the man says,
“I don’t know what to do,”
Dominoes.
Verse 3
Butterflies over the hill,
You can’t find it,
then nobody will.
And when the man says,
“Bake my bread,”
Butterflies.
After finally finding the name of the composer and the song’s origins, I kept searching—and eventually came across a listing for a vintage Silver Burdett vinyl that actually included Shoeflies on the tracklist. It was the first physical copy I’d seen after all these years.
The record, titled Teaching Music by Beer and Hofmann, was being sold by someone in the UK. I bought it right away. It could take a month or more to arrive, but I’m hoping it contains the version I remember—or at least something close to it.
Once it gets here, my plan is to carefully digitize the track and convert it to MP3. Not just for my own collection, but so this rare piece of children's music history doesn’t disappear again. I’d love to archive it properly and make it accessible to others who might be on the same hunt I was.
….to be continued?
If you remember Shoeflies, sang it in school, or happen to have any old Silver Burdett records, I’d love to hear from you. I’m especially interested in tracking down different versions of the song or learning more about how it was used in classrooms.
Whether you’re a teacher, collector, former student, or just stumbled here out of nostalgia—feel free to reach out. Let’s keep this little piece of musical history alive.