Remember singing at school?

[Gus Mears]

'member school? What were that all 'bout?

Occasional music teacher, James Brown (Kiwi, white, never beat up women) wrote a song in celebration of us becoming a 'Beacon School', whatever that was. 

We are a beacon school 

A shining ray

Finding the path 

And leading the way 

Even at aged 8 I was aware that it was awful. Otherwise it was the usual, liberal helpings of Morning Has Broken because the headmistress loved Cat Stevens.

Edited January 11, 2025 by Gus Mears

[SuperBacon]

When we were in Year 6, a Year 3 boy bravely tackled the "Make me a channel of your peace" song, forgot the words and cried and was mercilessly bullied by people singing at him for the rest of my primary school career. Awful. But at the time funny obviously. 

[Lion_of_the_Midlands]

The old Chest split out from another thread thread title. Class as always. 

It's definitely a sign of advancing age that I can't remember the names of any specific songs we sang at school, but the moment the good Dr posted those words from Autumn Days I knew the next line immediately. 

[Dr. Alan Grant]

My head has opened like the Ark of the Covenant this morning, ancient memories spilling out and melting my face.

If you were given the important task of handing out the Come And Praise books at the beginning of the assembly, you of course gave out the newer copies to your friends and the battered ones to the twats from other classes. And if there was someone you really didn’t like, they’d get the book that had dried bogeys stuck in the pages. Unfortunately if you weren’t handing out the books, there was always that small chance you’d get the snot book and that’s the whole day ruined. I defy anyone to sing Morning Has Broken with any enthusiasm once the realisation has kicked in that they’ve been given that one. It was like the dolly zoom in Jaws.

[SuperBacon]

10 minutes ago, Lion_of_the_Midlands said:

It's definitely a sign of advancing age that I can't remember the names of any specific songs we sang at school, but the moment the good Dr posted those words from Autumn Days I knew the next line immediately. 

The second verse mentions bacon and obviously everyone would look at me and laugh when that was sung. Which is fair.

[Merzbow]

Pretty sure I've told this before but there was a Yank teacher who's entire personality was that she was American and wanted the whole school to sing Battle Hymn of the Republic one morning, sadly for her this was during the Cantona heyday of Manchester United so you can see where the lyrics were changed by every almost every single kid in assembly, she tried restarting the song a couple of times and got increasingly mad as we kept doing it until she gave up.

[deathrey]

Not being exposed to Christianity in any way until I got to school, I had no idea that the songs we sang were all Church songs until I was an embarrassing age and flicked channels on to Songs of Praise one Sunday. That said I loved 'He's got the whole world in his hands' (not sure who I thought 'he' was?), 'Morning has broken' was another jam. Any one else sing 'Milk bottle tops and paper bags'? Not a religious one but an anti-pollution anthem that we were eventually banned from singing because we were meant to link hands and sway from side to side during the chorus and chaos would ensue.

Edited January 11, 2025 by deathrey

[Carbomb]

Oddly, we didn't sing Morning Has Broken at my school. We sang a lot of others mentioned, though:

Autumn Days

If I Had A Hammer

Were You There? (Inevitable sniggering from us boys at the line "I was cold, I was naked")

Streets of London

Give Me Oil In My Lamp (I think that's what it was called)

Rock My Soul In The Bosom of Abraham 

The Building Song

He's Got The Whole World In His Hands (thanks for the reminder, @deathrey)

Edited January 11, 2025 by Carbomb

[SuperBacon]

10 minutes ago, deathrey said:

That said I loved 'He's got the whole world in his hands' (not sure who I thought 'he' was

Bray Wyatt.

[Lion_of_the_Midlands]

12 minutes ago, Carbomb said:

Give Me Oil In My Lamp

Keep me burning, give me oil in my lamp I pray, give me oil in my lamp keep me burning, keep me burning 'til the break of day. 

[Abe_Knuckleball_Schwartz]

We plough the fields and scatter was always one at school we sang

[Tim Healys Chutney Spoon]

Surprised no mention of 'Hosanna' yet. A banger of its time....but hindsight not great.

 

Streets of London and something about an old grandfather clock that stopped. Never to go again until the old man died...or something like that.

Edited January 11, 2025 by Tim Healys Chutney Spoon
Bollocks just read back the last line of the post and expecting the usual knobby comments about death

[Lion_of_the_Midlands]

1 minute ago, Tim Healys Chutney Spoon said:

something about an old grandfather clock that stopped. Never to go again until the old man died...or something like that.

My grandfather's clock was too tall for the shelf so it stood 90 years on the floor. 

Please make it stop. 

 

[SuperBacon]

3 minutes ago, Tim Healys Chutney Spoon said:

Surprised no mention of 'Hosanna' yet. A banger of its time....but hindsight not great.

That's Oil In My Lamp/Joy In My Heart isn't it?

[Tim Healys Chutney Spoon]

1 minute ago, SuperBacon said:

That's Oil In My Lamp/Joy In My Heart isn't it?

You are indeed correct Bacon. As you were everyone