# Songs they made you sing in elementary school **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 23, 2026, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-they-made-you-sing-in-elementary-school/1032514 "2026-08-23T22:47:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![teelabrown](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/teelabrown/32/8412_2.png) [@teelabrown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/teelabrown)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2026, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-they-made-you-sing-in-elementary-school/1032514/1 "2026-08-23T22:47:27Z")
Watching _The Three Godfathers_ yesterday, and hearing Harry Carey, Jr. sing _The Streets of Laredo_, made me remember that we sang that song in elementary school - in 7th grade, I believe. Then I remembered other songs we sang: _I Ride An Old Paint_ _Jamaica Farewell_ _Greensleeves_ I’m sure our teachers tried to each us the history and relevance of these songs, but I don’t remember a word of that. I do remember most of the lyrics, however. What songs can you remember from elementary school? ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2026, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-they-made-you-sing-in-elementary-school/1032514/2 "2026-08-23T22:59:02Z")
“Fifteen Miles on the Erie Canal” “Zum Gali Gali” “Tingalay-O” “Adestes Fideles” “Oleanna” “Ríu Ríu Chíu” “I’ve Been to Haarlem” “Someone’s in the Kitchen with Dina” This was in the early to mid 1970s ---
**Author:** ![teelabrown](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/teelabrown/32/8412_2.png) [@teelabrown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/teelabrown)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2026, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-they-made-you-sing-in-elementary-school/1032514/3 "2026-08-23T23:05:25Z")
Oh, yeah, you made me remember: _I’ve Been Working On The Railroad/Someone’s In The Kitchen With Dinah_ ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2026, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-they-made-you-sing-in-elementary-school/1032514/4 "2026-08-23T23:09:10Z")
I have almost no memory of that. I do remember having to sing rounds of “Row, Row Your Boat” in the 4th grade, but that’s it. I only remember the singing in 4th grade because I had near perfect pitch and the teacher would have me sing the starting note to songs. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2026, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-they-made-you-sing-in-elementary-school/1032514/5 "2026-08-23T23:11:10Z")
Weird ones that stick out to me: – Rise and Shine (i.e. “Children of the Lord”). It was a public school also. Maybe 1 or 2 other religious songs we also sang but I can’t remember the specifics. No other religious teaching in the public school that I can remember. – Gee Mom I Want to Go Home (i.e. I don’t want no more of army life). I couldn’t relate to any of the lyrics, not having experienced anything like them except for occasional bad food. Our version even had a verse about movies with Raquel Welch versus Frankenstein. And while I understood the meaning of that verse in general, I still couldn’t completely grok its meaning, not having seen movies with either of them in it. ---
**Author:** ![burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/burpo_the_wonder_mutt/32/365_2.png) [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2026, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-they-made-you-sing-in-elementary-school/1032514/6 "2026-08-23T23:14:52Z")
I don’t remember the first four years (Catholic school, so mostly religious), but the next two were mostly Broadway tunes, particularly **West Side Story**. ---
**Author:** ![Common\_Tater](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/common_tater/32/13846_2.png) [@Common\_Tater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Common_Tater)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2026, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-they-made-you-sing-in-elementary-school/1032514/7 "2026-08-23T23:16:59Z")
We even had our own School Song! \*buffs nails\* ---
**Author:** ![SuntanLotion](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/suntanlotion/32/16165_2.png) [@SuntanLotion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SuntanLotion)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2026, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-they-made-you-sing-in-elementary-school/1032514/8 "2026-08-23T23:29:55Z")
Kumbaya, I think. ---
**Author:** ![susan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/susan/32/17537_2.png) [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2026, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-they-made-you-sing-in-elementary-school/1032514/9 "2026-08-23T23:33:47Z")
I wouldn’t say anyone “made” me sing. At the time, I was happy that I _got_ to sing. Drill, Ye Tarriers Jennie Jenkins Johnnie Is Gone for a Soldier When Johnnie Comes Marching Home Yankee Doodle Sweet Betsy from Pike Erie Canal America the Beautiful Battle Hymn of the Republic Several Negro (sic) spirituals I can’t think of at the moment On Top of Old Smoky –These were paired with excellent historical and explanatory information. Quite a few I already knew from the _Fireside Book of Folk Songs._ Several I knew already in their Alan Sherman or other parody versions. Many Christmas songs Hava Nagila Mayim Children of the Lord C is for the Christ Child The detestable dreidel song Much Irving Berlin Samba Lelê I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing Everything is Beautiful Sing (The Carpenters) _Bye, Bye, Birdie_ (entire score) It’s hard to separate out where I learned some songs because I also took recorder and guitar lessons. In addition, my parents liked folk music and musicals, so there was a lot of that at home. Much Pete Seger and Woody Guthrie. My father sang me a lot of German songs and “college” songs as well (Sweet Violets, Let Her Sleep Under the Bar, Anna the Delta Gamma Doll, Three Jolly Fishermen, and my favorite, “Oy, oy, oy, Zeta Beta Toy/what have you done to my nice Jewish boy?”). I could sing all the lyrics to _The Singing Nun_ phonetically (“Dominique, nique, nique”), Simon & Garfunkle’s _Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme_ (“I’ve been Ayn Randed, nearly branded/communist cause I’m left-handed/That’s the hand I use/Well, never mind”) and _Hair_ (“My body is walking in space/my soul is in orbit with God face to face/floating, flipping, flying, tripping/tripping from Potsville to Mainline”) as a 7-year-old. Learned some great vocabulary, too. ETA: Oh, and a wonderful album of Palmach Army songs in Hebrew, none of which I understood until decades later. ---
**Author:** ![Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/prof.pepperwinkle/32/13627_2.png) [@Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Prof.Pepperwinkle)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2026, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-they-made-you-sing-in-elementary-school/1032514/10 "2026-08-23T23:39:08Z")
So in Indiana on the 50s wecsang Stephen Foster, songs of the Gay 90s, patriotic songs, hymns and folk songs. Whe I was in my 30s I was stunned that not everybody knew them. ---
**Author:** ![SCAdian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scadian/32/3292_2.png) [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2026, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-they-made-you-sing-in-elementary-school/1032514/11 "2026-08-23T23:42:53Z")
3d or 4th grade (early '60s): “Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree” “B-I-N-G-O” 7th grade (mid '60s): “The Syncopated Clock” “The British Grenadiers” “The Happy Wanderer” “Captain Jinks” 8th grade: “Adeste Fideles” “Cindy” ---
**Author:** ![susan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/susan/32/17537_2.png) [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2026, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-they-made-you-sing-in-elementary-school/1032514/12 "2026-08-23T23:46:16Z")
> [@SCAdian](#): > > Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree” > “B-I-N-G-O” Yeah, yeah–those, too. I was very excited to actually see a kooksburra in a gum tree near Sydney Harbor around 40 years later. ---
**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2026, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-they-made-you-sing-in-elementary-school/1032514/13 "2026-08-23T23:47:09Z")
Portland Public Schools in the 1950s, our K-8 grade school had one music teacher for all the classrooms (2 or 3 per grade year, I don’t remember for sure) which he visited once or twice a week for an hour. During those visits we often had to sing songs, a decent way to pass the time I guess. I don’t remember any of them, really, probably Oh Suzanna and She’ll Be Coming 'Round the Mountain, Clementine, and other such folky songs. ---
**Author:** ![WildaBeast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wildabeast/32/6_2.png) [@WildaBeast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WildaBeast)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2026, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-they-made-you-sing-in-elementary-school/1032514/14 "2026-08-23T23:50:54Z")
In 3rd - 4th grade, in the late 1980s, our music books had a few old rock songs in them, such as: “At The Hop” and “Jeremiah was a Bullfrog (Joy to the World)”. Yes, the Three Dog Night song. They replaced “might fine wine” with “might fine time”. There were also spirituals like “Dem Bones” and “Oh Won’t You Sit Down” ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan\_myers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ed8c4c/32.png) [@aruvqan\_myers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan_myers)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2026, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-they-made-you-sing-in-elementary-school/1032514/15 "2026-08-23T23:53:08Z")
It being the crunchy tree hugging late 60s, the kindergarden teacher would bring a guitar in every month or so for a sing along with most of the kids under 3d or 4th grade in the school auditorium. Pretty much all the abovementioned songs, until one fateful morning when I was the cause of a parent teacher meeting. See, I spent my first 5 years in army housing on a military base. Everybody else was singing ['My Bonnie"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jGurbBx6hk) and so in the typical little kid with no inside voice sang along in full voice with ['Danang Lullaby](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FijfXaLBjI)", because it was the only lyrics I knew for that tune … I think it was the whole ‘Roll in, Roll in, my Go how the mortars roll in’ that did it. =) ---
**Author:** ![Aspenglow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aspenglow/32/76_2.png) [@Aspenglow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aspenglow)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2026, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-they-made-you-sing-in-elementary-school/1032514/16 "2026-08-23T23:53:46Z")
Wow, what a blast from the past. I do remember the songs. I attended elementary school in Salt Lake City, and all that that implies. I was a good singer and somewhere in the world there still exists a record album with 2nd Grade Me singing, “Standing at the Edge of Prayer” and “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” and at least one other religious song I can’t recall the name of. It confused me, because I wasn’t raised religious, yet all our school songs were. This was public school, mind, in the early 60s. ---
**Author:** ![Kropotkin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kropotkin/32/18045_2.png) [@Kropotkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kropotkin)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2026, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-they-made-you-sing-in-elementary-school/1032514/17 "2026-08-24T00:23:15Z")
Small town near Vancouver, BC, elementary school in the 1960s: We Are Marching to Pretoria (still scratching my head over that one) A Capital Ship, aka The Walloping Window-blind Hey, Look Me Over, from Lucille Ball’s Broadway show, Wildcat This Land is Your Land, Canadian version Something to Sing About Blowin’ in the Wind The Centennial Song, aka Ca-na-da was sung regularly in 1967 Lots of songs from Peter, Paul, and Mary and The Kingston Trio records John Henry Puff, the Magic Dragon The Frozen Logger (not to be confused with The Chilled Pale Ale) We had a very dedicated music teacher who worked really hard to have us sing songs of the day, from musicals to AM radio to folk revival/political stuff in a hard knock public school where boys and girls all carried knives and would rather fight than sing. I wish I remembered her name. ---
**Author:** ![Hampshire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hampshire/32/4887_2.png) [@Hampshire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hampshire)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2026, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-they-made-you-sing-in-elementary-school/1032514/18 "2026-08-24T00:43:51Z")
[![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/PSbUcKT4MBg/maxresdefault.jpg "Mama Paquita") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSbUcKT4MBg) ---
**Author:** ![Dung\_Beetle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dung_beetle/32/7945_2.png) [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2026, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-they-made-you-sing-in-elementary-school/1032514/19 "2026-08-24T00:54:16Z")
Rose of Sharon? This was a Baptist private school, and we never learned anything about the Rose of Sharon, but it was my favorite because it was a pretty melody and we sang it in rounds. Least favorite: Father Abraham. Lots of verses, and for each one we had to do a different motion, turn around, flap your hand, whatever. I was not excited about dancing for Jesus (which by the way, Baptists don’t even believe in.) ---
**Author:** ![Aspenglow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aspenglow/32/76_2.png) [@Aspenglow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aspenglow)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2026, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-they-made-you-sing-in-elementary-school/1032514/20 "2026-08-24T01:02:09Z")
> [@Aspenglow](#): > > and at least one other religious song I can’t recall the name of. Oh. I remember now. “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands”. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-they-made-you-sing-in-elementary-school/1032514.md?page=2)