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Original poster

Which songs/lyrics did you learn as a child (at school)?

57 replies

RustyRazor · 31/05/2022 17:40

I have just discovered my 10 year old did not know the drunken sailor. I remember learning that at Brownies! I take full blame and the mistake has been rectified, although I'm sure we learned other lyrics than the Rovers version.
DC don't go to a UK school so they don't hear anything British/Irish unless it's through me. What other songs are missing from their education?

OP posts:
babysgotthespends · 31/05/2022 22:34

I misinterpreted the title and came on to say Buffalo Stance by Neneh Cherry but after reading OP I realised that's not what you were after Blush

But we learned

  • most of the songs to Joseph and his Technicolour Dream Coat
  • Oliver
  • She'll be coming round the mountain
  • Many hymns inc. Morning has Broken, All things Bright and Beautiful and Lord of all Hopefulness (lovely one that)

We used to have 'Hymn Practice' at my school run by the headmaster and no teachers presents. Looking back now it was probably so teachers could plan. I used to love it though.

babysgotthespends · 31/05/2022 22:36

Stichintime · 31/05/2022 22:26

Some of the above and My Bonnie lied over the ocean, Swing low sweet chariot, Oats and beans and barley grow. Also "I was cold, I was hungry were you there?"

"I was cold, I was naked"

Cue lots of giggling Grin

TheHorrorOfIt · 31/05/2022 22:38

BernadetteRostankowskiWolowitz · 31/05/2022 19:03

The whole Come and Praise book (blue)

Same! I can visualise it right now

Interested in this thread?

Then you might like threads about these subjects:

10 year olds General education
schoolnuns · 31/05/2022 22:41

Black socks they never get dirty.

The longer you wear them the stronger they get.

Sometimes I think I should wash them but then a voice says to me don't wash them yet.

Morph22010 · 31/05/2022 22:43

We also used to sing lily the pink at primary school. I remember the song books we had, apuskido (not sure on spelling), ta ra ra boom de day (with pic of can can dancers on cover) and the jolly herring with pic of a fish on cover.

ShirleyJackson · 31/05/2022 22:45

Yulishka under the lilac tree
oh faria, faria
Yulishka where my heart must be
oh faria, faria

Don’t cast down your eyes so bright
come and dance with me tonight
faria, faria, faria, faria, FAAARRRRRIIIIIAAA

ShirleyJackson · 31/05/2022 22:46

When A Knight Won His Spurs

Morph22010 · 31/05/2022 22:46

Just browsing the songbooks on Amazon does anyone remember Okki Tokki unga?

shinynewapple22 · 31/05/2022 22:50

@Morph22010 my mum was a primary school teacher and taught music - she had that apuskido book and used to play it at home some time . I can't remember which of the songs I learned at school and which I learned from my mum.

Benjaminsniddlegrass · 31/05/2022 22:50

Football crazy (football mad, the football it has taken away the little bit of sense he had)

Fling it here (...our new muck-spreader's the best of the batch....)

Marco Polo (the fastest on the sea, on the sea)

Cauliflowers fluffy (and cabbages green)

Oh so many more.....

wanderingscot · 31/05/2022 22:52

Three craws sat upon a wa'

My favourite!

ClearButtons · 31/05/2022 22:56

She'll be coming round the mountain when she comes
She'll be coming round the mountain when she comes
Coming round the mountain, she'll be coming round the mountain
Coming round the mountain when she comes

Morph22010 · 31/05/2022 22:56

Benjaminsniddlegrass · 31/05/2022 22:50

Football crazy (football mad, the football it has taken away the little bit of sense he had)

Fling it here (...our new muck-spreader's the best of the batch....)

Marco Polo (the fastest on the sea, on the sea)

Cauliflowers fluffy (and cabbages green)

Oh so many more.....

Remember the top one “ I have a favourite brother and his Christian name is Paul, he’s lately joined a football team cus he’s mad about football, he’s two black eyes already and teeth lost from his gob, since Paul became a member of that terrible football club…”

and fling it here fling it there

does anyone remember “when the weather is fine you know it’s a sign for messing about on the river…”

Itsnotonlyrainbows · 31/05/2022 22:57

Waltzing Matilda yy
And I have actually just cried at When a knight won his spurs
Omg nostalgia

Robostripes · 31/05/2022 23:10

Yes yes to the Skye Boat Song and all the hymns. I also remember learning a collection of bizarre animal songs, some of the lyrics of which stay with me to this day - Gordon the Goat and Albert Ross the Albatross are the two which spring to mind.

Dolares · 31/05/2022 23:18

A very strange one, which I've tried to Google and it seems to be an adapted version of Cowboy Joe:

I'm a Tex, I'm a Tex, I'm a Texas girl,
I come from a land so far away,
I can ride, I can shoot,
I can do the hoola hoop,
When the cowboys come to town,
Yee hah!

There's a guy over there and he winks one eye,
He says that he loves me but he's telling a lie,
Cause his hair ain't curly and his boots don't shine,
He ain't got no manners so he ain't mine,

All the trees have blossom on,
All the boys have nothing on
With a wig wam here and a wig wam there,
Right where we are,
Dom dom.

😂

CthulhuInDisguise · 31/05/2022 23:19

Morningtown Ride
Lily the Pink
I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing
Bobby Shaftoe
Soldier, Soldier

honeybushbunch · 31/05/2022 23:25

@merryhouse omg I was just thinking about Jonah-Man Jazz the other day! We did it in final year of juniors, and I can literally still remember the entire lyrics now:

“Nineveh city was a city of sin; the jazzin’ and the jivin’ made a terrible din! Beat groups playin’a rock’n’roll; And the Lord when he heard it said “Bless My Soul!”

(I never quite got, until recently, how clever the lyrics were 😂)

jay55 · 31/05/2022 23:26

Jeremiah was a bullfrog

Benjaminsniddlegrass · 31/05/2022 23:37

@Morph22010 - if you take my advice there's nothing so nice as messing around on the river!
Did we go to the same primary school! 😂
Though probably not if you don't know Marco Polo it was pretty much a classic at our school!!

TabbyBeast · 31/05/2022 23:45

Let me take you by the hand and lead you through the streets of London

Blowin' in the wind

If I had a hammer

Obla de obla dah life goes on

If you saw my little backyard

Loads of hymns too!

TheDoveFromAboveCooCoo · 31/05/2022 23:49

My favourite. Surely someone else will remember this!!

Cauliflowers fluffy and cabbages green
Strawberries the sweetest than any I've seen
Beetroot purple and onions white
All grow steadily day and night

The apples are ripe
The plums are red
Broad beans are sleeping in their blankety bed
Broad beans are sleeping in their blankety bed (shh)

merryhouse · 31/05/2022 23:49

@babysgotthespends our headmaster did Hymn Practice too. Did your music teacher have a very tiny voice?

@honeybushbunch I need a boat, man...

NotanotherboxofFrogs · 01/06/2022 02:13

I left primary in 1988, that last year we covered some real bangers as our teachers had a real love of music and tried to incorporate a few older ones and charts which left it very varied, we had singing 3 times a week for an hour at a time and learned about 2-3 songs a week but it was great fun, there was “dances” to go with some of them as well. I put dances in quotes as they were very iffy but hilarious craic. I have lovely memories of those classes as a child, it was a simple time and we used to have to analyse the sentence structures of the lyrics in my last couple of years so it was educational as well.

Hello is it me you're looking for
When Im 64
Streets of London
Islands in the stream
One moment in time
Suddenly - Neighbours wedding theme
Another brick in the wall (we loved screaming out WE DONT NEED NO EDUCATION)
Im in love with the girl who lives in the house with the whitewash gable
Gloria (you always on the run now)
You're such a good looking woman
With or without you
Caravan of Love
Stand by me
Living doll
I got you, Babe
Coward of the county
The Gambler
The chicken song - spitting image
Frog chorus - we all stand together
Hole in my shoe
Karma chameleon
Uptown girl
Happy talk
Irish eyes
My heart is in Ireland
Streets of New York
I never promised you a rose garden
Mushin durkin
Black velvet band
Long long before your time

littlelovely · 01/06/2022 02:27

We sung Lily the Pink at school too. When ever I’ve reminisced
about this with friends, I’d not come across anyone else who had sung it at school.

I also remember singing songs from Mary Poppins - Chim-Chiminey and Supercalafragalistic.

We used to sing rounds which I always liked -Kite flying high in the blue of the sky and a baby sardine.