That's the usual response that you might expect from a audience of children. But this wasn't an audience of children. The same thing happened more recently when Fred Rogers went to Boston University to receive an honorary degree, and a packed stadium of graduates and their families greeted him by singing his familiar opening refrain. Fred Rogers' songs have always held special meaning for some people, and they are quick to write to him about the way they and their families use his music.
Adults often find the songs useful, too.
That Fred Rogers considers himself first and foremost a songwriter may be surprising to those who know him as public television's Mister Rogers, a man knowledgeable in child development, who is also a Presbyterian minister, but his Rollins College bachelor's degree is in Music Composition. The Voice of Firestone, NBC Opera Theatre, and The Hit Parade. He points out that his involvement with music began much earlier, around the age that many of his viewers are today. When he was still a preschooler, his parents told him that he could choose anything he wanted from a toy catalogue. Now it seems to me that music has always been at the root of who I am and what I do.