« Back to Songs

What Do You Do With the Mad That You Feel? (Song)  

Written by Fred Rogers | © 1968 by Fred M. Rogers

What do you do with the mad that you feel
When you feel so mad you could bite?
When the whole wide world seems oh, so wrong...
And nothing you do seems very right?

What do you do? Do you punch a bag?
Do you pound some clay or some dough?
Do you round up friends for a game of tag?
Or see how fast you go?

It's great to be able to stop
When you've planned a thing that's wrong,
And be able to do something else instead
And think this song:

I can stop when I want to
Can stop when I wish
I can stop, stop, stop any time.
And what a good feeling to feel like this
And know that the feeling is really mine.
Know that there's something deep inside
That helps us become what we can.
For a girl can be someday a woman
And a boy can be someday a man.

Notes

• Occasionally referred to by its shortened title, "What Do You Do?"
• Fred Rogers quoted the lyrics of this song during his 1969 testimony to the United States Senate Subcommittee on Communications, provoking "goose bumps" from Senator John Pastore who then approved the $20 million appropriation for public television.
• A sing-along of this song can be found on the What Do You Do With the Mad That You Feel? DVD release.
• A slightly different version of this song is used in Episode 104a of Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood.
• Download the Daniel Tiger version of this song from iTunes.

Appearances

Coming Soon...