Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree
Merry, merry king of the bush is he
Laugh Kookaburra, laugh Kookaburra
Gay your life must be.
Happy Wanderer, Funiculi Funicular, all via ABC radio transmissions to my primary school circa 1967, Australia.
Plus, every morning we sang the National Anthem, back then ‘GOD SAVE THE QUEEN’. 
Did anyone else do this version?:
*
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord
He is tearing down the alley in a 1950 Ford
With one hand on the wheel and the other on a can
Of Pabst Blue Ribbon beeeeeeeeeer*
And then there’s “Magalena Hagalena”:
Magalena Hagalena Hoopensteier Wallenheimer
Hogan Logan Mogan was her name.
She had two peculiar hairs on her head,
One was black and the other was red.
She had two eyes in the middle of her head,
One was green and the other was red.
She had two teeth in the middle of her mouth,
One pointing north and the other pointing south.
And one day, a ten ton truck hit poor Magalene;
The poor truck driver had to buy a new machine.
I remember that song from over 60 years ago.
A couple that I never encountered anywhere else: “My Paddle’s Keen and Bright”
(1960s-'70s, southern New Jersey)
An appropriate one for this time of year:
Have you seen the ghost of John?
Long white bones with his skin all go-o-o-one
Ooh, Oo-oo-oo-oo-ooh"
Wouldn’t it be chilly with no skin on?
Linkto what I think was the tape we used, as it has the right lyrics.
The ending right now is my Animal Crossing New Leaf town song. The game is quite relaxing.
I left the United States in 1981, in the middle of 1st Grade, so I don’t remember many of the songs we sang. The ones I do remember are:
“This Land is Your Land”
“Frère Jacques (Brother John)” - sung in English and French
“Michael Row Your Boat Ashore”
“Joshua Fought the Battle of Jericho”
… and lots of other black spirituals, now that I think of it; kinda funny for a lily-white Manhattan school.
In the Titanic song, did you change the line:
“Husbands and wives, little children lost their lives”
to:
“Uncles and aunts, little cousins lost their pants”
In my part of the country, her name was Madalena Hadalena Ookataka Wakataka Oka Poka Noka.
we sang " . . . little children wet their pants"
This was one of my favorite camp songs
Maybe it was just us in upstate NY
I’ve got an old mule and her name is Sal
Fifteen years on the Erie Canal
She’s a good old worker and a good old pal
Fifteen years on the Erie Canal
We’ve hauled some barges in our day
Filled with lumber, coal, and hay
And every inch of the way we know
From Albany to Buffalo
Naah, we had that one and I was in Georgia at the time.
Low bridge, evverbody down,
Low bridge, cuz we’re comin’ to a town…
EVERY SINGLE TIME, from grade school through high school, whenever we got on a bus for a field trip, we HAD to sing 99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall. And by the time we hit seventy-something beers, we’d futz up the number. It’s a shame that due to buget cuts, most kids these days don’t go on field trips. How are they ever going to learn to count backwards?
My brain is stuck on a song about a goat that eats somebody’s long red underwear. Then there’s some accident waiting to happen and the goat coughs up the longjohns and stops the train.
~VOW
Bill Grogan’s goat,
was feeling fine.
Ate three red shirts,
right off the line.
Bill took a stick,
gave him three whacks,
And tied him to
the railroad tracks.
The whistle blew,
the train grew nigh;
Bill Grogan’s goat,
was doomed to die.
He gave three moans,
of mortal pain,
Barfed up those shirts,
and flagged that train!
Anyone remember Piccolomini?
…
I’m apparently the first Texan to add to this thread, because there are 3 songs that all Texas children have to learn:
The Yellow Rose of Texas (checks out lyrics… I don’t think those are the lyrics we learned in school?)
Home on the Range
Deep in the Heart of Texas
That last one - you can probably find all the Texans in the room by singing:
The stars at night
Are big and bright
Anyone who claps is a Texan. It’s like Roger Rabbit and “Shave and a Haircut”
This thread and the time of year brought back a vague memory from the early 60s. In 2nd or 3rd grade, we’d learned a Halloween song, tho for the life of me, I don’t know what it was. But I do remember one of the people on our block made us sing the song before giving us our treats.
What an odd thing to pop into my head…
Other than that, I don’t remember singing anything in particular in school, altho we did have some outside-of-school songs that mocked our teachers. And, no, I don’t remember them either. Cut me some slack - I’m 65!!!
The only song I remember singing in class apparently was made up by the teacher or was a local thing. I can’t find it with Google. It’s about eating raisins with oatmeal.
And I remember humming the Banana Bunch theme song while playing on the playground.
That’s all I remember from school.
I liked the really old songs we learned in music class:
Green Grow the Rushes
Above the Plain
Greensleeves
Waltzing Matilda
My Darlin’ Clementine
On Boy Scout camp outs we sang more earthy tunes, such as:
Granny’s in the cellar
Lordy can’t you smell her
Baking biscuits in her dirty darned ol’ stove
And in her eye there’s matter
That’s drippin’ in the batter
And she whistles as the snot runs down her nose…
Or:
Once I went a-swimmin’
Where there were no women
Down beside the sea
Seeing no one there I hung my underwear
Upon a willow tree
Jumped into the water
Just like Pharaoh’s daughter
Dove into the Nile
Someone saw me there
And stole my underwear
and left me with a smile!