Songs you learned in school growing up?

[Deleted]

HI everyone,

What are some of the songs you learned in school growing up? I am doing some research on this. I would like to start a family sing along at the library teaching all the old American songs we learned in school. (now that there are no longer music classes in public schools)

So help me with my research.. what songs did you sing? Stuff like, "This Land is Your Land", etc

[Hobson]

I can't say that I learned a lot of American songs growing up. Don't know why, maybe because I went to Catholic school and we mostly sang religious songs. That's why I bought a book. Here's a link.

www.sheetmusicplus.com/title/America-s-All-Time-Favorite-Songs/3594248

[millring]

Grandfather's Clock (My grandfather's clock was to big for the shelf....)
Sidewalks Of New York (East side, West side, all around the town....)
The Band Played On (Casey would waltz with the strawberry blonde....)
Gold Watch and Chain (I will pawn you my gold watch and chain, love...)
Not American, but... TheHappy Wanderer (I love to go a-wandering along the mountain path....)

[Doug]

Erie Canal

[Deleted]

When I was about seven or eight I fell in love with my teacher Mrs Williams. She taught us a couple of American songs. "Where Have All The Flowers Gone" and "Puff The Magic Dragon". I still have a bit of a crush forty years later.

[Deleted]

Good ones, everyone. I had the memory of learning "Wells Fargo Wagon" from The Music Man. I had forgotten all about that one.

It's fun to see what other people have learned in different regions of the country. I grew up in the midwest (Chicago) so it is different from the folks here in Virginia.

[RickW]

Grew up in Canada, so got a bit of a mishmash.

Hot Cross Buns
Frere Jacques
Allouette
This Land is Your Land

Don't remember much else. I know there were others.

[Russell Letson]

"Erie Canal," "Stodola Pumpa" (a Czech folk song), "In the Evening by the Moonlight." There must be a dozen others that will probably dribble back from deep storage now.

[Cornflake]

Erie Canal.
Drill Ye Tarriers, Drill. (Every mornin' at seven o'clock there's sixteen tarriers workin' on the rock, and the boss comes along and he says keep still, and bear down heavy on that cast-iron drill, and drill, ye tarriers, drill. Still remember it.)
Dixie. (This was in the South.)

[RickW]

Oh yes, and 16 tons.

"16 tons, what do you get?
Another day older and deeper in debt.
Saint Peter don't you call me, 'cause I can't go....
I owe my soul to the company store."

My daughters sang that in a musical evening at the school in the Spring. No idea what it was about. I explained the meaning, and what a union was, and why this would drive the creation of a union. A great, great protest song.

[Dub]

I don't remember too many of the songs we had to learn in school. I know hundreds of songs but didn't learn any of them in school.

One I recall was Kookaburra:

Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree,
Merry merry king of the bush is he,
Laugh Kookaburra, laugh Kookaburra,
Gay your life must be.

I think we sang Red River Valley and I remember singing Stodola Pumpa too. Oh, and White Coral Bells:

White coral bells upon a slender stalk,
Lily of the valley deck my garden walk,
Oh don't you wish that you might hear them ring,
That will happen only when the fairies sing.

That's it for me. But see, I was in school a loooonnnng time ago.

- Dub

[Doug]

Jul 28, 2011 20:26:06 GMT -5 RickW said:

Oh yes, and 16 tons.

"16 tons, what do you get?
Another day older and deeper in debt.
Saint Peter don't you call me, 'cause I can't go....
I owe my soul to the company store."

My daughters sang that in a musical evening at the school in the Spring. No idea what it was about. I explained the meaning, and what a union was, and why this would drive the creation of a union. A great, great protest song.

Merle Travis said that was the worst song he ever wrote. Then TE Ford did it and the royalties came in, then Jimmy Dean did it and more royalties came in. And it became a damn good song.

[Cornflake]

Dub, I forgot Kookaburra.

[Doug]

Poly wolly doodle

[iamjohnne]

OH My Darling Clementine
Home on the Range

Row Row Row your Boat

OH Susanna
London Bridges

She'll Be Comin' Round the Mountain

and of course.....

Found a Peanut

[Village Idiot]

Many mentioned here already, including every song Millring mentioned. One I remember that hasn't been pointed out is Sweet Betsy From Pike,

Who crossed the wide prairie with her lover Ike,
With two yolk of oxen, a large yeller dog,
A tall shaghai rooster and one spotted hog

Wait for the Wagon
Over the river

[Phil N. Theblank]

America, the beautiful

I'm Looking over a 4 leaf clover

Row, row, row your boat [as a round]

[Marshall]

99 bottles of beer on the wall. 99 bottles of beer.
If one of those bottles should happen to fall.
98 bottles of beer on the wall.


(We took a lot of bus rides).

[sidheguitarmichael]

Hmmm. A lot of mine were sort of dirty. Great green globs of greasy grimy gopher guts; that sort of thing. I'm not sure that counts.

[Tamarack]

Most of the ones mentioned above -- Kookaburra, This Land is Your Land, America the Beautiful, My Country 'Tis of Thee, etc. Mostly I recall the parodies that got us into trouble

Have you ever heard tell of Sweet Betsy from Pike,
She crossed the wide prairie with her lover Ike,
With two yoke of oxen and an old army cot,
Three Bob Dylan records, and four pounds of pot.


There was also a schlocky tune sung during Michigan Week:

Oh it's great to live in Michigan,
With its forest painted green,
Where a boy (girl) can spend a summertime,
Fishing in a clear blue stream.
Or can pass a carefree hour away,
Sailing near a sandy shore.
Oh it's great to live in Michigan,
Make it mine forevermore!

I think the "forest painted green" part was prescient of the booming Christmas tree farms, and color enhancement of said trees.