It's Summer Camp Season!

And for those of you looking for a great camp, here is the link to the one where I learned all the songs I write about on this blog and on Facebook:

http://www.ajawah.org/dates%20rates.html

It's near the Twin Cities, sessions are 12 days long - two are girls only and two are boys only.  The first session (girls) starts tomorrow.  The campfire's ready for singing...

Taps turns 150

At Camp Ajawah, a bugler played taps every evening when it was time to go to sleep.  It sounded terrific drifting through the pines to our tents and then out across Linwood Lake and the stars above.

At the girls' sessions, it was also sung as part of a medley that closed every evening's campfire:

Day is done
gone the sun
from the hills
from the lake
from the sky
all is well
safely rest
God is nigh.

Here's a great article on the origins of the tune 150 years ago this summer:

My other blog

I just posted for the first time on my new blog, "One Song, Seven Questions."  The titles says it all.  Other than format, it also differs from this blog (which is about sing-a-long songs) by featuring popular music.  And by popular music, I mean the traditional definition of "anything other than classical."  Please check it out:

http://onesongsevenquestions.blogspot.com/

Alphabet Song - Song #38

This is a very simple song: the alphabet sung to the tune of  "99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall."

ABCDEFG
HIJKLM
NOPR, RSTU
VWXYZ - Oh!

After every chorus, you sing a random nursery rhyme to the same melody: "Mary had a Little Lamb," "Jack and Jill," "Little Miss Muffet," etc.

It's a hard one to find online, as any search for "ABC Song" or "Alphabet Song" turns up the more familiar versions like the one set to the melody of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star."  You can't search for the lyrics, obviously.  But the song does appear to have been sung by folks (Girl Scouts and others) since at least the 1950s.

It can be used after meals to facilitate an orderly emptying of the dining hall.  Everyone sings the choruses; the song leader points to a different table for each verse and, after that table sings a nursery rhyme, it is dismissed.

Apples and Bananas - Song #37

A simple song from girls' camp which has the fun element of changing vowels each time through - Lisa Loeb explains:

   

Googling the song turns up a lot of Barney and some Raffi, but it's been around longer than that, at schools and camps and scouting songbooks.  Not sure where it originated, though.

Down Under

I was in Adelaide, Australia for a conference a few days ago. Melbourne now and then Sydney before returning to the USA. This made me thing of three songs to post on my Facebook page: Waltzing Matilda Kookaburra Sits on an Old Gum Tree Tie Me Kangaroo Down And someone reminding me in a comment of one we sang during girls' sessions at Camp Ajawah: My Father Slew a Kangaroo And googling that reminded me of another song I'd left of my long list of summer camp songs: My Dog Lima. The last song is not Australian, but like "My Father" is a short, funny song about an animal. Any other Aussie songs I have missed that you know from summer camp days?