Born to Be Free.
Our *music teacher wrote a lot of her own songs, which we sang, but from the books, I recall “Swing the Shining Sickle,” “Turn the Glasses Over,” and the ever popular “Erie Canal.”
*Back in the day, it was common for school districts, at least in this area, to have a ‘traveling’ music teacher who would spend one day a week at a different school for the music class. Not grades or tests, though, just singing songs and learning about music.
We didn’t do school songs, but I recognize a lot of these from camp. Do those count?
The Titanic Song
I say a-boom-chicka-boom (no idea the title)
Liiiiiiiitle shark beep beep, beep-beep-beep
One dark niiiight, when we were all in bed (la la la)
I want to say there was another one about a worm? I think he got drunk? Or drunk a lot of water?
Those were fun.
La kova shelie shalosh pinot,
Shalosh pinot la kova shelie.
Lu-ley hayu lo shalosh pinot,
Lo haya ze ha kova shelie.
There’s a whole other list for Hebrew school:
Zum Gali Gali
Atzei Zeitim Omdim
Mayim Mayim
Bim Bom
Dona Dona
In elementary school I remember there was at least one teacher who made up his own songs and stories to go with them. I remember loving some of them but I can’t recall any lyrics.
And there was the preThanksgiving Day assembly song:
What does Mr. Turkey say?
Gobble gobble gobble
Tomorrow is thanksgiving day
Gobble gobble gobble
Not sure if that was just us.
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I work for an insurance company and I use this ALL the time when I have to do things that involve making alphabetical lists of states.
In grade school our music teaching nun made heavy use of the America Sings songbook. Billy Boy, My Grandfather’s Clock, Santa Lucia, Ciribiribee, Down de Road, Anchors Aweigh, Funiculi Funicula, I Don’t Want To Play In Your Yard, Reuben and Rachael, Blue Danube, Old Folks at Home, I’m Always Chasing Rainbows, The Little Brown Church, Nelly Bly, My Country tis of Thee, Old Black Joe. There were tons more but there were a lot of songs in that book and there are ones I know we never did (at least through third grade when I moved to public school).
'tis not crap, and in the original Spanish it involves de-roofination 
I sang the original in the 70s; my mother remembers singing it in Normal school.
About what time? It sounds like it could be the English version of this.
[shameless plug]For any Hispanics who used to sing along Los Payasos de la Tele and missed it, you may want to check out Miliki’s record of a few years ago.[/sp]
I was in grade school through most of the 70s, and we sang it. Also a lot of Peter, Paul, and Mary stuff - 500 Miles, Puff, etc. I went in knowing most of them already, having been raised by Kingston Trio groupies.
Grade school in the 70s for me. We also sang Get along Cindy, Sweet Betsy from Pike, Skip to My Lou and other folksy stuff.
I went to Catholic school. We had very little music time, and that was spent learning hymns. My mom sang patriotic songs all the time, and I learned those from her. We also had a variety of records with the classics that have already been listed here.
We kids did, of course, sing the “Glory, Glory Hallelujah” parody, only the last few lines were
So we bopped her on the bean
with a rotten tangerine,
and her teeth came marching out!
We also had a version of “Ta-Ra-Ra-Boom-De-Ay”:
Ta-Ra-Ra-Boom-De-Ay
We have no school today!
Our teacher passed away.
We killed her yesterday.
We threw her in the bay.
The sharks had lunch today!
We were not allowed to sing these at home. Mom was a teacher.
My Cindy’s got religion
She had it once before
But when she hears my old banjo
She’s the first one on the floor.
Get along home, Cindy Cindy
Get along home, Cindy Cindy
Get along home, Cindy Cindy
I’ll marry you someday
That’s all I remember of that song.
We sang most of these songs in school or girl scout camp in the 70’s. In ‘73 we frequently sang Blowin’ in the Wind. Then one day the teacher said we wouldn’t have to sing it anymore because we were pulling out of Vietnam.
This thread makes me think of something from when I was in the first grade (1979-1980.) One day every week or two a teacher from outside our school would come in with a hand puppet and we would sing a song about “High Hat.” Like Don Gato, I was never sure if this was just a local thing or part of a larger program, and some googling shows that not only was it part of a national program but that revisions of it are still around. Articles here, the google link includes a few lesson PDFs, and it never crossed my mind before, but he is probably the basis for Mr. Hat. (I wasn’t able to find a recording of the song.)
Anybody else familiar with this?
Eat the grass upon the hill
Drink cool water from the pool
something something, something else and
Leafy shade is nice and cool
Do you know this wobbly colt
Standing 'side me by the lane
Soon a handsome horse will be
This shiny colt blah blah blah blah
Got this damn thing earworming me yet again. Can’t find a trace of it ANYWHERE.
pout
Does anyone remember a song about “the clouds, they had a pillow fight?” I laughed so hard the teacher sent me to the principal’s office.
Born on a mountain top in Tennessee,
Greenest state in the land of the free.
Raised in the woods so’s he knew every tree,
Killed him a bear when he was only three.
Oh it snowed last night, snowed last night
The sky bears had a pillow fight
They tore up every cloud in sight
And tossed down all the feathers white
Oh, it snowed last night, snowed last night…
I liked sixth grade best, our music book had a lot of folk or historical songs from many cutures and countries., “The Wearin’ of the Green”, “Rock of Ages”(Maor Tzur), “Waltzing Matilda”, although I knew the latter already from a Captain Kangaroo recored, and many others.
On top of spaghetti
All covered with cheese
I lost my poor meatball
When somebody sneezed.
On top of a school house
All covered with blood,
I shot my poor teacher
With a .44 slug…
And so on. Yeah, scramble the SWAT team. That wasn’t taught in school, obviously; it was just passed around by the students.
As far as one taught in school: “Please, Mr. Columbus, Turn the Ship Around”.