Old childhood songs

We sang ‘What shall we do with a drunken sailor?’ last summer at the Festival of Voices (primary school choirs, Gdd1 was a participant) ) at Dorchester Abbey in Oxfordshire. The Abbey was packed, there was a lot of very lusty singing!

My bonnie lies over the ocean
My bonnie lies over the sea
My daddy lied over my mummy
And that's why they got little me😀

I only lnow a couple of words of fhis song- it was Allira- who remindede of it a while back.
Its a guy singing about hos brother (Silvestre??)
Hes got an arm
What's it like??
Its like a leg!!

So many memories here!

We had an LP by Mitch Miller and his orchestra with lots of sing a long songs. My dad used to play it on the radiogram on a Saturday morning and sing his way through all the songs. I particularly remember My Bonnie Lies over the Ocean as I could never figure out what it was about. I think I was about 10 before I discovered it wasn’t my body lies over the ocean! 😆

I’ve just found it on YouTube.

youtu.be/gCUGhVXUCSg?si=fMOdl9YvwFWK51vg

Lavender Blue Dilly Dilly ...

My Nan taught me all the words of the rhyming song Oranges and Lemons but I hated the ending ( here comes a chopper to chop off your head!)

Fallingstar

merlotgran

My grandmother used to teach me old music hall songs - most with questionable lyrics. 😂

Ha ha, my old dad knew a few, I think he learned them in the navy during the war, I remember one that was not too bad -
‘There I was standing at the Church
Standing at the Church
Standing at the Church
All at once he left me in the lurch
Oh ‘ow it did upset me
Then he sent me a little note
Here’s the little note
This is what he wrote
Can’t get away to marry you today
My wife won’t let me’

My Dad used to sing some really old songs, he must have heard from really old relatives.
One of the ruins that Cromwell knocked abaht a bit.
Come round any old time, make yerself at ‘ome.
Only a bird in a gilded cage.
Come into the garden Maude.
All music hall songs but probably from Victorian times?

Little boxes, little boxes, amd fheyre all made out of ticky tacky, and they all look just the same...

In primary school we sang dozens of songs from ‘The National Songbook” and also did country dancing. I wonder if children today have any fun at all at school?

A mouse lived in a windmill in old Amsterdam.
A windmill with mice in is hardly surprising...

Will you miss me tonight, when I'm gone
(Boom, ahh! Ya ta ta taa!)

Morcambe and Wise.

Hang on, you're booming and ya-ing, when you should be ya ta ta yaaing...

‘There’s a hole in my bucket’ was one of our favourites on a long car journey

My grandparents used to take me to their Darby and Joan club on a Friday afternoon sometime. There was always a singalong session - In Dublin’s Fair City and the one about the windmill with a mouse wearing clogs were regular features.

I loved Danny Kaye’s Ugly Duckling too grannywannynanny and the one about the hippopotamus wallowing in the mud.

This was always a favourite round the piano with my uncle Vinny playing -
‘Daisy, Daisy
Give me your answer do
I’m half crazy
All for the love of you
It won’t be a stylish marriage
I can’t afford a carriage
But you’ll look sweet
Upon the seat
Of a bicycle made for two.

Singing on coach or car journeys I remember ‘ten green bottles’ and ‘one man went to mow’ being sung.

Westering home with a song in the air...

Early one morning just as the sun was rising I heard a maiden sing in the valley below....

What care I for my goose feather bed
My blankets strewn so comely -o
Tonight l lie in a wide open field
In the arms of my raggle taggle gypsy-o...

MissAdventure

Don't jump off the roof dad!
Youll make a hole in the yard.
Mother's just planted petunias- the weeding and seeding was hard...

If you must end it all, dad
Why don’t you give us a break
Just take a walk in the park, dad and throw yourself into the lake!

In yonder pet shop sits a vulture
What it cost, I do not know
Should I swap it for my ferret?
Should I let my ferret go?
Oh no John, noJhn, no!

Don't jump off the roof dad!
Youll make a hole in the yard.
Mother's just planted petunias- the weeding and seeding was hard...

I wish community singing was popular now - I like to sing, but not as a show.

I am still word perfect on 'When father papered the parlour' thanks to my grandad singing it almost daily.

Fallingstar I remember that one too!

My favourite as a small child was listening to Danny Kaye singing Ugly Duckling on the wireless in the 1950’s.
youtu.be/nDZOJVR8e6M?si=pNS3AywSNlgUllqG

This has brought some memories back.

As very young children, most likely pre school, we sang things like Teddy Bears' Picnic and Me And My Teddy Bear - just the chorus from what I now know is a Rosemary Clooney song.

merlotgran

My grandmother used to teach me old music hall songs - most with questionable lyrics. 😂

Ha ha, my old dad knew a few, I think he learned them in the navy during the war, I remember one that was not too bad -
‘There I was standing at the Church
Standing at the Church
Standing at the Church
All at once he left me in the lurch
Oh ‘ow it did upset me
Then he sent me a little note
Here’s the little note
This is what he wrote
Can’t get away to marry you today
My wife won’t let me’

Miss Adventure I was singing that as I read! Was the missing bit "cats and rats and elephants..."?

My grandmother used to teach me old music hall songs - most with questionable lyrics. 😂