What did we sing in school?

I remember Sir Eglamore! I had forgotten all about him.
Our choir is doing an Oh John at the next concert. The spirituals are lovely to sing.

Gillybob and Ashtree I had never heard that one it is best forgotten.

At secondary school we did a version of Non Nobis Domine (of which there must be hundreds.) I can remember the tune but no idea who's version it was.

It was William Byrds version I have just found it on Youtube.

We sang the Roger Quilter version nelliemoser

I remember most, though not all of these songs.One that we sang a lot at primary school was perhaps Down In Demerara.... Hey ho! Away we go donkey riding, donkey riding, hey hi!away we go riding on a donkey etc?
I loved Blow The Wind Southerly as well.

There was a song book with a red cover, called something like Traditional British Songs (but not certain of that). It had all the songs in it
British Grenadiers
Blow the wind
Ash Tree
Linden Lea
Cargoes (by John Masefield)
The Vicar of Bray
The one that I never understood was "The Keel Row". I thought it was about a dance that somebody was doing- "Oh we-ell may the Keel row". Wasn't until I moved North and I found out a keel was a sort of boat I realised!

We too sang Non Nobis Domine at senior school, one of my all time favourites - and we sang the William Byrd version Nelliemoser, so beautiful! At Christmas another favourite was Il est né le Divin Enfant.

We sang a lot of songs already mentioned. One of my favourites was Michael Finnigan who 'grew whiskers on his chinnigan'.

The weirdest song we sang was about the Titanic.

Oh they built the ship Titanic
To sail the ocean blue
And they thought they had a ship
That the water would never go through
But the Lord's almighty hand
Said that ship would never land
It was sad when that great ship went down

It was sad
It was sad
It was sad when that great ship went down
Husbands and wives
Little children lost their lives
It was sad when that great ship went down.

What a cheerful children's song

Ashtree* Thank you for that new earworm.
I have just started singing that now, in French.
It has helped to push Bohemian Rhapsody out of my head which is one we are doing at one of my choirs.
Bohemian Rhapsody is a really good sing and a lovely tune. Freddie Mercury knew what he was doing.

I don't mind a GN choir but for heavens sake please DO NOT make me sing "Wherever you are" ever ever again.

I don't like it and our choir has trotted it out as the program filler of last resort far too often.

I had never heard the term "earworm" now I cannot get past " All things Bright and beautiful"

Yes greenfinch when I read the heading of post Marianina went through my mind right away.

Squirrel Nutkin with his coat of brown
Drink to me only with thine eyes
Fire in the galley, fire down below
Hey ho away we go riding on a donkey
Paul's little hen
Go tell Aunt Nancy the old grey goose is dead
Plus: the Camptown Races; Oh Susannah; My grandfather's clock; Early One Morning; O Soldier, soldier, won't you marry me?

I glanced at this thread as I was getting into bed and now I'm in bed trying to sleep, but keep remembering songs I know I'll have forgotten by morning - so here they are!! Goodnight

I remember singing Nymphs and Shepherds, O for the wings of a dove, La Marseillaise (in French choir) and our school song (most of the words of which I can still remember). There must have been loads of others but those are the only ones I can now recall (aside from the usual hymns).

Wow. One of my better ideas for a thread I think we learned them without any words on paper - schools in those days usually had very little money and of course no duplication facilities. I think it is a lot easier to remember the words of a song than to memorise a poem?
I wonder if some of these are getting lost? Are any of us teaching them to our grandchildren?

I do and have sung with my GDs since they were babies - my SiL says I have a song for every subject! My GDs are very lucky as they have had wonderful singing teaching at their junior school; the teacher is also a very gifted pianist. They sing all sorts of stuff and we sing things like "I've got rhythm" in chorus, until someone tells us to shut up.
I was very lucky as the music teaching was brilliant at my school shame about the maths and science and we sang Purcell, Benjamin Britten, Tallis to name but a few. We also used to go and record stuff for the schools' music programmes at the BBC, which was great fun.
I really do say "thank you for the music" to my school.

I tried to teach my GS (8) "Oh soldier, soldier" but he doesn't seem to be particularly interested in singing ("you sing it to me Nanny"); although we do hear him singing when he's on his own sometimes it isn't anything I recognise. I've heard him sing at school and he has a good clear voice. We didn't have a school choir, but occasionally our headmaster used to take our music lessons and he used to spend half of it placing us so that he got the sound he wanted. We quite often didn't get through a piece until we'd spent most of the lesson doing a sort of musical square dance but he did get a better sound out of us. Sometimes we didn't sing at all. He would bring in some of his collection of stirring British music, so we had Elgar, Bax and Walton, Eric Coates et al!

In junior school we sang Welsh folk songs and every day at the end of the last lesson every class stood at their desks and sang - Now The Day Is Over, just realised I sang this every school day for eight years !

Cwcw fach, Dacw Mam yn Dwad, Oes Gafr Eto? Anniebach ?

Beth eto? or is it maybe... Beth arall? (Fy Cymraeg dim yn dda iawn eto )

Oh gosh yes I had completely forgotten Now the Day...

Ashtree we sang those too. Did you sing The Angel Gabriel from heaven came down? Or Adam lay ybounden? We seemed to work our way through the Oxford Book of Carols. This is such a lovely thread, bringing back so many memories!

Jess , and Dafydd Y Gareg Wen, Hob Y Deri Dando , Rhyfelgyrch Gwyr Harlech and Llwyn Onn ,

Many of these songs are coming back to me now! In our German classes at senior school we learned Silent Night in German. It's lovely. I am still word perfect in it although I have forgotten the rest of my German. My granddaughter learned it at school too and we have sung it together

A bit off thread here,sorry, but do any of you remember an old song that my mum used to sing, called (I think)

Please come down and finish the baby, finish the baby do.
He's got two eyes and one little nose
Ten little fingers and ten little toes
Got no hair, got no teeth, and the poor little thing can't chew , so
Will you please come down.....etc.

I'm not getting anything on YouTube at all.

It used to make me quite sad when I was little!

The songs I sang to my children they remember vividly and have already started singing them to their own children. One real favourite that I was reminded of recently was "Bill Grogan's Goat" which I used to get them singing when we were doing the washing up over in the sanitary blocks on camping holidays. However, I learnt that in Guides, not at school.

Ah yes - Guides ones. Ginggang gooly gooly gooly....

What the flip was that all about?

(Grandsons sing it now at Cubs/scouts)