# Is the sing-a-long dead?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-sing-a-long-dead/718508
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [April 25, 2015, 8:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-sing-a-long-dead/718508 "2015-04-25T08:12:29Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)
#### Post date: [April 25, 2015, 8:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-sing-a-long-dead/718508/1 "2015-04-25T08:12:29Z")
Its just my observation that nobody is doing it anymore. The days of singing “Camptown Races” and “Row Row row your boat” around the campfire seem to be gone. Even in schools they seem to have droped general signing and if you ask many young people today they hardly kow any tunes.
What do you all think?
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### Author:  [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)
#### Post date: [April 25, 2015, 9:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-sing-a-long-dead/718508/2 "2015-04-25T09:55:11Z")
I think people are less likely these days to do art or music themselves, there seems to be an idea that if you aren’t “professional” you shouldn’t do such things. Sure, there used to be a lot of people who were crap at singing, but they enjoyed themselves and had fun. These days, they’re told to shut up and someone puts on commercial music.
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### Author:  [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)
#### Post date: [April 25, 2015, 10:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-sing-a-long-dead/718508/3 "2015-04-25T10:24:50Z")
According to my daughter, the audience at the performance of_Gigi_ she attended on Broadway last week seems to believe that the custom is thriving.
Okay, it was just one guy, but still.
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### Author:  [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)
#### Post date: [April 25, 2015, 10:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-sing-a-long-dead/718508/4 "2015-04-25T10:50:58Z")
This doesn’t ring true to me. One of the first things my toddler learned at daycare was “Ring Around the Rosie”. Songs are a part of their daily activities.
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### Author:  [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)
#### Post date: [April 25, 2015, 10:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-sing-a-long-dead/718508/5 "2015-04-25T10:52:45Z")
> [@even\_sven](#):
>
> This doesn’t ring true to me. One of the first things my toddler learned at daycare was “Ring Around the Rosie”. Songs are a part of their daily activities.
Same with mine - when they were little. We had endless rounds of “The wheels on the Bus”. But after about age 8 - never.
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### Author:  [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)
#### Post date: [April 25, 2015, 11:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-sing-a-long-dead/718508/6 "2015-04-25T11:15:38Z")
At a heavy enough party there is a decent chance a singalong will start even without musical accompaniment (IME).
At concerts, the crowd singing along has been an increasingly large part of the experience in the past 15 years.
So, that’d be a no.
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### Author:  [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)
#### Post date: [April 25, 2015, 11:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-sing-a-long-dead/718508/7 "2015-04-25T11:19:01Z")
“Freebird!!”
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### Author:  [@Marion\_Wormer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marion_Wormer)
#### Post date: [April 25, 2015, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-sing-a-long-dead/718508/8 "2015-04-25T22:21:42Z")
They held packed houses of singalongs to Frozen where I am, so I expect it’s nationwide. The songs are different, but it still occurs.
My variant of this question is, Do men still memorize all the lines to movies they love? It used to be Monty Python films (it’s been decades since I’ve heard a quote) so maybe now it’s Napoleon Dynamite, or Time Machine HotTub?
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### Author:  [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)
#### Post date: [April 25, 2015, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-sing-a-long-dead/718508/9 "2015-04-25T22:48:23Z")
I’m guessing a better explanation than “kids just don’t do singalongs these days” is that you, as an older adult, are not exposed to activities where there would be sing-a-longing. Either that, or you don’t recognize contemporary sing-a-longs as the same kind of sing-a-longs you grew up with.
If kids aren’t learning songs in schools, it has less to do a decline in “sing-a-longs” and more to do with cutbacks to music education. But that’s nowhere universal.
Today at my yoga studio, the instructor had us do a “sing-a-long” to an ancient Hindu song. Not my cup of tea, but everyone else seemed to enjoy it.
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### Author:  [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)
#### Post date: [April 26, 2015, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-sing-a-long-dead/718508/10 "2015-04-26T00:24:32Z")
Believe it or not, this is actually a big question in church circles. The conventional wisdom is that congregations don’t want to sing anymore, and the only music anyone will join in on are the old traditional hymns (even then they’re only sung by the old traditional members of the congregation.) Similarly, it’s getting harder and harder to get young people to join choirs, forcing many congregations to rely on professional musicians and making music less “worship” and more “performance.”
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### Author:  [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)
#### Post date: [April 26, 2015, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-sing-a-long-dead/718508/11 "2015-04-26T02:09:14Z")
Mitch Miller died in 2010, so there’s that to consider.
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### Author:  [@Rick\_Kitchen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_Kitchen)
#### Post date: [April 26, 2015, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-sing-a-long-dead/718508/12 "2015-04-26T02:33:54Z")
Not only Frozen, there were singalong showings of Mamma Mia and there have been singalong showings of The Sound of Music.
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### Author:  [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)
#### Post date: [April 26, 2015, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-sing-a-long-dead/718508/13 "2015-04-26T04:08:55Z")
> [@Rick\_Kitchen](#):
>
> Not only Frozen, there were singalong showings of Mamma Mia and there have been singalong showings of The Sound of Music.
Well that is different. Usually they try to get the audience to NOT sing along.
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### Author:  [@Kenm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kenm)
#### Post date: [April 26, 2015, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-sing-a-long-dead/718508/14 "2015-04-26T05:22:01Z")
I certainly hope so.
[**But here you go.**](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dY9gtYeHhk)
Scarey stuff.
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### Author:  [@rowrrbazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rowrrbazzle)
#### Post date: [April 26, 2015, 5:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-sing-a-long-dead/718508/15 "2015-04-26T05:50:50Z")
Here’s a classic sing-along: [Just A Gigolo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ub9Oj4LaSUs#t=5m30s)😃
And sing along with Ethel Merman! [Betty Boop-1932-You Try Somebody Else - YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2WIA3l1Rnw#t=4m35s)
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### Author:  [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)
#### Post date: [April 26, 2015, 12:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-sing-a-long-dead/718508/16 "2015-04-26T12:19:13Z")
> [@kunilou](#):
>
> Believe it or not, this is actually a big question in church circles. The conventional wisdom is that congregations don’t want to sing anymore, and the only music anyone will join in on are the old traditional hymns (even then they’re only sung by the old traditional members of the congregation.) Similarly, it’s getting harder and harder to get young people to join choirs, forcing many congregations to rely on professional musicians and making music less “worship” and more “performance.”
I see that in my church where they will be doing these worship songs and almost nobody sings. Then they start up “Amazing Grace” and suddenly the church is filled with voices.
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### Author:  [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)
#### Post date: [April 26, 2015, 12:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-sing-a-long-dead/718508/17 "2015-04-26T12:24:27Z")
Nobody will miss Camptown Races.
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### Author:  [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)
#### Post date: [April 27, 2015, 7:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-sing-a-long-dead/718508/18 "2015-04-27T07:55:16Z")
It’s not dead, it’s just changed format. Karaoke often turns into the kind of sing-a-long you used to get round the pub piano.
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### Author:  [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)
#### Post date: [April 27, 2015, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-sing-a-long-dead/718508/19 "2015-04-27T16:56:19Z")
To parents with elementary school kids:
Do they still have talent shows where most people sing and dance?
Do kids have some kind of music class or a music bus where you get cheap like instruments like recorders to play with?
Are non-music specialty kids (ie. random kids in a class) forced to perform in music assemblies like singing Christmas songs or whatnot?
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### Author:  [@ethelbert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ethelbert)
#### Post date: [April 27, 2015, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-sing-a-long-dead/718508/20 "2015-04-27T17:12:49Z")
On Amazon yesterday I noticed a sing-along version of the movie “Pitch Perfect”.
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