I wrote about "When You Hear a Cannon" nearly five years ago, wondering how there could be so little information online about this simple round.  I searched again recently and found nothing new.  So I decided to put up a version on YouTube and to write the sheet music.  Nothing too fancy for either effort. 

First, the video:

Second, the sheet music:

Please chime in on the comments if you know this song.

Another musical mystery

Googling a song from my days at Camp Ajawah, I found nothing online other than references to this very website or to Camp Ajawah songbooks.  The lyrics are:

If you want to be a Boy Scout
just come along with me 
and we'll hike by the light
by the light of the moon

If you want to be a Boy Scout
just come along with me
and we'll hike by the light of the moon.

By the light of the silvery moon
Oh, we will hike by the light of the moon
If you want to be a Boy Scout
just come along with me
and we'll hike by the light of the moon.

Oh, the Boy Scouts are coming with a choo-choo rah rah
Choo-choo rah rah
Choo-choo rah rah
Oh, the Boy Scouts are coming with a choo-choo rah rah
Choo-choo hurrah hurrah hurrah Hey! Hey! Hey!

So maybe they aren't the most sophisticated lyrics in the world, but the tune itself is rousing and well suited for group singing.  Not everyone at camp - or even most - were Boy Scouts, but we all hiked.

I searched under the title "If You want to be a Boy Scout" and also tried using various fragments of the lyrics, as it's not unusual for songs to have words altered a bit to fit a different use.  But nothing turned up.

A note: for the line "By the light of the silvery moon" the melody comes from the 1909 Broadway standard of that title, but the rest of the song has a different melody and tempo.

I'll try asking the folks who know Camp Ajawah's history the best if they know from whence came this song, but if you know anything about it, please share your info in the comments.  

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.