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.

Can't believe nobody has mentioned One More Step Along The World I Go.

Not really a sad song as such but always made me feel a bit nostalgic about moving onto the next stage of life. 'Keep me travelling along with you' always makes me think of carrying those we've loved and lost with us throughout life too.

@WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll

As well as several already mentioned, we had:

'At The Name Of Jesus' with the really loud, strong, piano-thumping intro to each verse

'Cauliflowers Fluffy And Cabbages Green'

'If I Were A Butterfly'

'A Child Is Black, A Child Is White'

I loved 'Cauliflowers fluffy'. I think it was called Paintbox. We used to all put our arms around each other's shoulders in long rows and rock from side to side as we sang the chorus, ending with a final shout.

'The apples are ripe, the plums are red, the broadband are sleeping in a blankety bed- YEAH!'

*broad beans

so many of us GenX have these fab memories of school songs. I love them. It made me a bit sad when i found out my children didnt have assemblies like this. I think it was a great way to start the school day

Remember listening to Puff on junior choice and making me feel sad as a little girl but it was ' I was born under a wandering star' ...guy with the mega deep voice...my god it would stop me in my tracks and I'd just stare at the radio

‘I was a music teacher in an Essex junior school and led a hymn practice every week for years. "Autumns Days" holds fond memories for me!

"To say a great big Fankyou I mustn't forget!" ( never did get them to pronounce the TH properly in the 25 years I was there!) I always used to let them shout on the bit about "a win for my home team! " too!‘

Were you my teacher??? We were allowed in do that.

Found myself the other day singing "Glad that I live am I, that the sky is blue. Glad for the country lanes, and the fall of dew..." Most of us in that inner city school many years ago had never seen a country lane, but we loved that song!

this is my favourite version

My children are at a CofE primary and they still sing “Shine Jesus Shine” and “Who Put the Colours in the Rainbow?” In assembly. Lovely stuff! They also do “It was on a starry night” at Christmas, and the lines “And all the angels sang for him, the bells of heaven rang for him, for a child was born, king of all the world” get to me for some reason.

We had a cassette of children’s songs that my parents used to play in the car, that had a song about how there were no unicorns because they refused to get on Noah’s Ark when the flood came so drowned and went extinct. That was pretty traumatic when I was 5.

We always seemed to be singing at my schools. DH insists that every time a folk or traditional song is on the radio, I say “we did this at school”

The class learned Avenging and Bright one year, which we all absolutely loved, singing with great menace, as it is about wreaking revenge and has plenty of blood in it.
The same year, we went on a school trip to Dover Castle and we were walking in a crocodile through the dark dungeons. We spontaneously broke out into song. I'll never forget it, echoing through the gloom:

Avenging and bright fall the swift sword of Erin
On him who the brave sons of Usna betrayed! --
For every fond eye he hath waken'd a tear in,
A drop from his heart-wounds shall weep o'er her blade.

By the red cloud which hung over Conor's dark dwelling,
When Ulad's three champions lay sleeping in gore --
By the billows of war, which so often, high swelling,
Have wafted these heroes to victory's shore --

We swear to avenge them! -- no joy shall be tasted,
The harp shall be silent, the maiden unwed,
Our halls shall be mute, and our fields shall lie wasted,
Till vengeance be wreak'd on the murderer's head.

Yes, monarch! though sweet are our home recollections,
Though sweet are the tears that from tenderness fall;
Though sweet are our friendships, our hopes, our affections,
Revenge on a tyrant is sweetest of all!

How about

Colours of day dawn into the mind
The Sun has come up, the night is behind
Down down in the city, into the street
And let's give the message to the people we meet

So light up the fire, let the flame burn
Open the door let Jesus return
Take seeds of his spirit, let the fruit grow
Tell the people of Jesus, let his love show

Etc etc

I've had this song in my head all night after reading this thread!

Puff the magic dragon, so sad, I am in my 50s now and it still upsets me.

@WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll

As well as several already mentioned, we had:

'At The Name Of Jesus' with the really loud, strong, piano-thumping intro to each verse

'Cauliflowers Fluffy And Cabbages Green'

'If I Were A Butterfly'

'A Child Is Black, A Child Is White'

Oh, ‘At the name of Jesus’ was my absolute favourite due to that intro! I used to know the words to all the verses. I could probably remember quite a lot of it now if I put my mind to it.

Did anyone else ever sing ‘Oh Jesus I have promised’ to the Match of the Day theme tune? ‘Oh JEsus I have promised, to SERVE thee to the end (bom bom), Be THOU forever near me, My MASter and my friend (bom bom), I SHALL not fear the battle, if THOU art by my side, No-or wander from the pa-athway if thou wilt be my guide’. (Yep after 40 years )

And yes, so much singing at school, both religious and non-religious. From primary all the way through to age 18. I think it’s such a shame that this has largely gone from British schools. Nowadays they just sing along to pop records occasionally. My DS thinks this is what ‘choir’ is because they did Young Voices at his primary school and that’s how they learnt the songs for it. The only teacher who could play the piano left and the piano was just left gathering dust in a corridor until they started begging on FB for someone to come and take it away (idk what happened as he’s left that school now). Whereas we had piano playing on the way in & out of assembly every day. I can still hum the obscure Handel piece which was our music teacher’s favourite because I heard it at least twice a week for seven years.

@Mrsfrumble
We had a cassette of children’s songs that my parents used to play in the car, that had a song about how there were no unicorns because they refused to get on Noah’s Ark when the flood came so drowned and went extinct.

Is that the one that goes something like "there were cats and rats and elephants, but sure as you're born, you're never gonna see a unicorn?"

The very same @VienneseWhirligig! And the humpty-back camel and the chimpanzee! A bit of Googling tells me that it’s The Unicorn Song by Shel Silverstein.

This song absolutely terrified me aged about six. Sleepless nights for a whole summer worrying about hell. Found the songbook in a second-hand bookshop a few weeks ago and took this picture. Didn’t buy it though, no chance!

Hush you, my baby,
the night wind is cold,
the lambs from the hillside
are safe in the fold.
Sleep with the starlight
and wake with the morn,
the Lord of all glory
a baby is born.

I sang this in the school choir 1973 and it still has the power to move me

I love 'When a knight won his spurs' but I always tear up at the line "and the knights are no more and the dragons are dead..."

But for me, there is nothing that makes the ahirs stand on my arms and neck as a choirboy singing either The Holly and the Ivy or I saw Three ships

hairs that is...

I love "in the bleak Midwinter"...some people find it melancholy but I think it is beautiful

It puts me in mind of Shakespeare's

When icicles hang by the wall,
And Dick the shepherd blows his nail,
And Tom bears logs into the hall,
And milk comes frozen home in pail,
When blood is nipp’d and ways be foul,
Then nightly sings the staring owl,
Tu-whit;
Tu-who, a merry note,
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

When all aloud the wind doth blow,
And coughing drowns the parson’s saw,
And birds sit brooding in the snow,
And Marian’s nose looks red and raw,
When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl,
Then nightly sings the staring owl,
Tu-whit;
Tu-who, a merry note,
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

I had the chorus of "would you walk by on the other side" stuck in my head for 30 years. Recently found it on you tube.

For those of you who still find the ending of Puff the Magic Dragon too traumatic a couple of extra verses were added...

One fine day it happened, Puff woke from a dream
He thought he heard a familiar voice and Jackie’s laugh it seemed
He looked around his cavern and over by the door
Stood a little boy with a piece of string and smile he’d seen before

“Hello My name is Billy, my dad told me your name
He said I’d find you in the cave along the cherry lane“
Puff, that mighty dragon smiled in his joy
He’d never be alone again for this was Jackie’s boy

I remember a lullaby my gran used to sing to me, my sister and DS as babies, called the Congo Lullaby. It is such a calming song but I've never heard it anywhere else.

A friend's uncle taught us a Welsh folk song (Cyfri'r Geifr) about goats, I remember the words in Welsh to this day but don't know all of the translation. That's another one DS heard as a baby!

@TartanDMs your grandma must have been singing the [[https://genius.com/Paul-robeson-congo-lullaby-lyrics Paul Robeson song]]

There's another lovely one of his, Curly-headed baby, that featured in a film - my friend used to sing it to her little daughter.

Ah, bit of a link fail, but the actual link works

@LittleBoxes

This song absolutely terrified me aged about six. Sleepless nights for a whole summer worrying about hell. Found the songbook in a second-hand bookshop a few weeks ago and took this picture. Didn’t buy it though, no chance!

I remember this from the Girl Guides but there's another verse. After the one about him laughing on her tombstone. The tombstone fell on him and squish squash he died. Squish squash he died. Squish squash he died.

Someone mentioned Grimm's fairytales. I have a book with these and it must be from the sixties and think they are very close to the original tales. Snow white is actually called Rosebud. A lot more ghoulish than the ones read to children now. The book was a presented as a prize to my dsis I think when in Primary school.
Loved Puff the Magic Dragon. We had a 45 record of it and my other favourite about the mouse in a windmill in Amsterdam.
I saw a mouse where. There on the stairs. A little mouse with clogs on going clipity clip on the stair.