“It went zip when it moved and bop when it stopped and whirrr when it stood still….” In Tom Paxton’s The Marvelous Toy, the folk singer delights in a gift, although he “never knew quite what it was, ...

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In Tom Paxton’s 1962 song “The Marvelous Toy,” a wee lad gets a gift from his father that’s mysterious and delightful. It goes “zip,” “bop” and “whir”; it dashes around the room with gleeful energy.