What songs for care homes?

[Helpaladyoutplease]

Hi, random query but im going along to sing at a care home in a few weeks and want to sing some non christmas songs among the carols. But im struggling to work out which songs might be meaningful to the residents overall? I mean they were born at the end of ww2ish right so it's not the war songs generation anymore! Any advice from people who work in care homes or perhaps have older parents?

Go wider than that! People don't only listen to the music of their extreme youth.

Ooh yes, mum likes him, Nik Kershaw, Paul Young.

Well, I'm over 70 now - if I end up in a care home I'd want to hear Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Cream - maybe some Hendrix... Perhaps Rolling Stones, Beatles, Doors, Beach Boys and early Leonard Cohen. They were all in the charts when I was a teenager.
But not bloody songs from musicals!

nb. I also like Prodigy, Nirvana, Nine Inch Nails, Rammstein

We have a sing-a-long for people with memory problems, and they do love the old songs.

So things like "Pack up your Troubles", "Grandfather's clock" "Blaydon races" "She'll be coming round the mountain" "Daisy Daisy" those ones that I used to do in song time at school in the 80s.
They also quite like some of the Beatle ones, and some of the musicals like from "Sound of Music" and "Annie" and that sort of thing.

You have similar tastes to my husband, who is 63.

My Mum in her mid-eighties likes Elvis, Dolly Parton, Simon & Garfunkel, but anything 60s-90s, she likes hearing stuff that we, her children listened to as teenagers too. She doesn't like pre-rock & roll 50's music, although there was plenty of that about in her teens - no Frank Sinatra or Perry Como for her! People in their late 70s and 80s would probably have been hippies or mods and rockers.

Saw NIne Inch Nails at Brixton Acadamy in 1999 and more recently at the O2 arena - amazing!

Whoops - forgot The Offspring - another favourite! Saw them at Brixton too.

Christmassy but not religious , I'm dreaming of a white christmas, I saw momma kissing santa Claus , When the Red Red Robin.

Ha, what a range! Im a choral style singer so definitely some of these are more suited to my voice type than others!

Maybe it was wartime songs from the Falkland's Era - Duran Duran and Wham. 😳😂

Could you ask them to make recommendations this week so you've got time to prep? I couldn't imagine anything worse than being in a care home and someone singing Cliff Richard if I was a Stones fan.

I used to work with elderly people, and they don't all want Vera Lynn etc. Songs by The Beatles, Cilla Black, Dusty Springfield and such all seemed to be enjoyed.

I'm 64 but like Linkin Park, Rolling Stones, Arctic Monkeys, Pigeon Detectives and Kaleo.

My mum liked ABBA, Fleetwood Mac, Eva Cassidy, Enya, Carpenters, Barry Manilow… as well as a bit of Meatloaf.

For future reference I will mostly be listening to Rush, Marillion (Fish era) Crowded House, Van Halen, Joni Mitchell, Led Zeppelin and Tori Amos.

My choir sing in care homes. Sixties songs, anything by Carpenters, Stand by Me, I'm a Believer, Do Ron Ron, Help by the Beatles. Can't remember the others but that sort of era songs seem to go down well.

Think about the cultures in thr home, the older Irish people for example might like the Fuerys etc . My friend does music in care homes and has people in tears sometimes playing the old songs, in a good way.

This made me chuckle. I'm over 55 and it's Adam and The ants, Duran Duran etc from my youth.

Assume the typical age is mid 70s to mid/late 80s

So you're looking at the music of about 1955 onwards - say to early 1970s

So roughly Elvis and Buddy Holly, via the Rolling Stones and The Who to Mud, The Sweet and of course, as it's Christmas, Slade

DH and I realised we were old when we tuned into Radio 2 one day and Sex Pistols were on. In my youth, Radio 2 was Terry Wogan's Floral Dance

What is concerning is talking to ones offspring, who can be casually cruel about the passage of time.

For they pointed out that if you go back to when Karma Chameleon was number one (only a few years ago, surely?) .....

...... and then go back the real number of years ago again ....

....... you get to 1943

So for them, listening to the early 80s music isn't so different to a 20something year me listening to the hits of the 1940s

Thank you for recognising this! My job takes me to many care homes, and when I query why they're playing Vera Lynn to people who at 80 we're only born in 1943, I get blank looks from many staff. Old = Wartime generation in their heads!
So yes, 60s and 70s. Carpenters, New Seekers, Beatles etc! 😊😊

😱😱 I'm 60 and grew up with Punk and New Romantics lol!!

My mum is alway pointing out that care homes need to ditch the Perry Como and crank up the rock and roll. She was Hendrix and Stones fan. She wants the Kinks and the Animals not Doris Day! That said FiL was only about 10 years older than her and was definitely the pre rock-'n'-roll generation so those in their 80s and 90s may not be ready for guitar burning.

My MIL is 92 and would choose Queen.

Continuing and updating the wartime Vera Lynn theme a bit, the average age of a Chelsea Pensioner is 82 (figure is a few years old, but it's probably not changed that much)

So when the music of their twenties is roughly that of 60 years ago - so that's early 1960s.

You don't have to be in your 80s to be in a care home! For me (63) it would be 70s music probably - I never could stand most 80s music! (I'm not in a care home by the way... just decrepit)