Old School songs and did they affect you in any way?

[Deathraystare]

For some reason the same bloody song from school keeps going around in my head. I hated it! Basically it quite angers me! Yes I suppose that sounds hard but it must have stirred some early feminist feelings.

Basically it went "Oh Soldier, Soldier won't you marry me with your musket, fife and drum?" "Oh no sweet maid I cannot marry you for I have no xxx of my own" "So off she goes to her Grandfather's chest and gets him a xxx of the very, very best and the Soldier puts them on".

Of course at the very end after the bastard has sponged off her he tells her he cannot marry her as he has a wife of his own. Everyone else thought this was funny. I did not, I thought it was terrible!

Another song was about "Go and tell Aunt Nancy the old grey goose is dead" this upset me cos I was (still am) soft over animals.

I thought my grandfathers clock was sad.

Water of Life is very affective!

I though the girl in 'soldier soldier' was daft. We did that one at primary.

I came on to quote
"thronging through the cloud rift, whose are they the faces, faint revealed, yet sure divined the famous ones of old......."

Lots of them were sad.

I remember all of the above. "Illkey Moor bah tat"-then we shall have to bury thee....

We sang a song about the Titanic with the chorus:
"It was sad, it was sad
It was sad when that old ship went down.
Husbands and wives, little children lost their lives
It was sad when that old ship went down."

Lovely jolly tune, but felt a bit incongruous with the words.

My grandfathers clock gives me PTSD. I can't even think about that horrific line, you know the one, without getting teary.

There was an old lady who swallowed a fly... horse... dead of course. is also not very pleasant.

None of these are as bad as those Grimms fairy tales that often end with someone being punished for which read killed by being sealed into a barrell lined with nails and rolled down a hill.

I remember singing The Streets of London at school and thinking about the poor man outside the seaman's mission.

@TeenMinusTests

Well yes she was - I guess if she was on mumsnet we would all tell her that! I just got angry at the soldier!!

We used to sing Whisky in the Jar at primary school as a folk song. Got a shock when I grew up a bit and heard the Thin Lizzy version.

@ChesapeakeEmbarrassed

Which Grimm fairy tale was that one? I have a strange fixation with horrible fairy tales, but am unfamiliar with that one!

We used to sing this one:

‘Sad, puzzled eyes of small hungry children
Thin, weary bodies tending the ground
Weak, pleading voices begging in cities
How long must they wait for food to share around?’

The other verses were equally as cheery, with droughts and earthquakes, wars and famine. I really liked the tune so I used to sing it loads and my parents HATED it.

We also sang Sloop John B by the Beach Boys at primary. Never really thought of the words, but I'm not sure schools would dare nowadays:

"Drinking all night
Got into a fight
I feel so breakup
I wanna go home..."

Teddy Bears' Picnic and Nellie the Elephant are far more upbeat.

Colours of Day, as it’s about the ending of something but does have a kind-of upbeat message. I want it at my funeral. One that really used to affect me is Puff the Magic Dragon; my DF used to sing it to me and I used to cry at the bit where Jackie stopped visiting Puff. I still cry at it now and I’m 42!

"Jet planes meeting in the air to be refuelled"

Disturbing mental image there.

@ChrissyPlummer

Colours of Day, as it’s about the ending of something but does have a kind-of upbeat message. I want it at my funeral. One that really used to affect me is Puff the Magic Dragon; my DF used to sing it to me and I used to cry at the bit where Jackie stopped visiting Puff. I still cry at it now and I’m 42!

We had Colours of Day at my mother’s funeral. I’m still a little bitter that because it was the closing hymn, the undertakers rushed us all out of the church as soon as it started so that we wouldn’t be late to the crematorium.

@MimsyBorogroves

"Jet planes meeting in the air to be refuelled"

Disturbing mental image there.

Such a weird song. Isn’t air to air refuelling usually only for bombers?

‘Such a weird song. Isn’t air to air refuelling usually only for bombers?‘

Apparently so. Thank goodness the internet came along when it did and put an end to all our years of jet plane refuelling confusion

@DementedPanda

I thought my grandfathers clock was sad.

Me too - still makes me feel sad

My mum used to sing Soldier, Soldier to me when I was little. My dad played the guitar and on a Saturday night we would all sit in a circle singing folk songs so a lot of the songs mentioned here were standard in our house including Streets of London. Primary school sons were also folk songs, like Morningtown Ride and I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing. I never felt any ill-feeling towards them but when I got to secondary school, which was super traditional with proper hymns, I felt out of place because I didn't know any!

I can remember once as an infant sobbing through singing Shine Jesus Shine. I had no idea why. I think I had to be taken out of assembly to calm down. I think it just stirred something in me
It is quite a nice tune to be fair.

I’m sorry, that’s awful 😞.

That was for @DaisyDozyDee

There was one we sang at my church primary school which had lines about various bible characters that got progressively longer.
Eg Daniel Daniel. Daniel Daniel. Daniel in the li li li li Daniel in the lions den.

I can still remember our class being absolutely helpless with laughter at the final verse
Gabriel Gabriel Gabriel Gabriel Gabriel blow your trump trump trump trump.

We never sang it again.

Oh god yes, Puff the magic dragon!
I’m early 40’s and I always had to stare at a fixed point away from the projected words in assembly to stop from actually crying 😂

@DaisyDozyDee I'm guessing "refuelled" was the only rhyme they could think of for "grass is jewelled"