PASS IT ON!_®

Songs Sixth Graders Love to Sing 

By Jacki Breger 

From Pass It On! Issue #39 (Fall 2001)

Singing with older kids can be pretty wonderful! Ten to twelve year olds—sixth graders—have long been about my favorite age to sing with in school and at camp. I just love singing with them! They are competent; they are able to hold their own on melody and parts; they are interested; they can understand complex ideas and tunes in songs; and they are fun! Sometimes the kids are reticent at first. They may test the leader and the limits. They may even be a bit obnoxious from time to time. But they really do love to sing. It’s important to remember that!

It’s also important to choose songs carefully and thoughtfully. Older kids like songs that are “real”—that have important content about real-life issues, that are beautiful, that are challenging, that have parts and harmonies and require some serious mastery. Like adults and younger children, they also like songs that are fun, funny, and silly. Here are some examples of songs in these categories and how I’ve used and taught them. (A note at the end of the article explains the asterisks and provides some information on sources for the songs. Known authors are credited; otherwise the songs are traditional or anonymous.)

Content About Real-Life Issues

I love talking about and singing songs from the Civil Rights Movement with older kids. They understand the issues and really “get it” about righting wrongs and singing for justice and equality. “We Shall Not Be Moved”* is one of my favorites. When I introduce it, I generally give a brief history of the song and the political movements through which it has traveled. As the kids become comfortable with the song, they always add their own verses, often based on observations of what seems unfair in their own life experience. Some examples include “Stop the drug dealers, we shall not be moved,” “No more police raids,” and “We want to fix our school.” Two other songs we all like a lot are “Oh Freedom”* and “Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me ’Round.”*

I am frequently asked to bring in songs that relate to the social-studies units for the year. One sixth-grade class was studying the Depression of the 1930s. Two of their favorite songs were “Pastures of Plenty”* (Woody Guthrie) and “Banks of Marble”* (Les Rice). A group studying the 1960s loved “Turn, Turn, Turn”* (Eccl. and Pete Seeger), “Say the Word” (The Beatles), and “Ella’s Song” (Bernice Johnson Reagon).

One of the all-time great experiences for me with a group of sixth graders was teaching them Si Kahn’s song “Lady of the Harbor.” They had spent several months of the year studying immigration, learning about where their families came from and what their early experiences were like in this country. I had heard the song and thought it would be perfect. The chorus quotes from Emma Lazarus’ poem on the base of the Statue of Liberty, and the song talks about Si’s grandfather’s experiences and dreams, as well as current political issues around immigration. (This happened to be very current at the time, with California’s anti-immigrant ballot initiatives.) It was a real challenge—a beautiful song not intended, really, for group singing. It soars and speeds up and slows down. But we took our time with it (it was to be one of their graduation songs), talked about the meaning, read the full poem, and talked about the language and the choice of words. The kids loved it! Their teachers reported to me that they (the kids) were singing (practicing) it all day long, in class and out on the yard. By the time of graduation, they sang it like their lives depended on it. I could hardly lead them, I was so moved by their singing!

Beautiful Songs, With Parts and Harmonies

The first song that comes to mind in this grouping is “Suitors.” I don’t know anything about where the song comes from, but I know that older kids love to sing it. I learned it at camp when I was about 10, and I loved it. It never fails. The song is a tragedy, about a young woman whose father must approve her suitors. She falls in love with one who is not approved, runs off with him, and dies going against her father’s will. It’s an opportunity to talk about how things used to be—and still are, in many places. The refrain is easily split into four easily-learned parts. Once they know it, I sometimes encourage kids to drop out of singing, two or three at a time, in order to listen to how beautiful they sound. It takes them awhile to figure out how to do this, but when they do, they are enraptured by the beauty their group is creating.

Two more “beautiful” songs are Joni Mitchell’s “Circle Game”* and Tom Paxton’s “Ramblin’ Boy.”* It never ceases to amaze me how much kids love singing both of them. The chorus of “Ramblin’ Boy” has a lovely harmony. And don’t forget “Jamaica Farewell.”*

Part songs allow for a real sense of mastery by older kids. Two that come to mind are “Siyahamba” (trad. S. African/Doreen Rao) and Lisa Atkinson’s “You Can Dance.” Both songs have three parts. (Lisa’s actually has four—three back-up parts and the lead—but I use just the lower and middle back-up parts.) When I first started teaching them, I taught one part each to three separate groups. We sang them that way for awhile, but then the kids begged to learn all the parts. At the time, I wasn’t sure these sixth graders could really do it, but I decided to give it a try. Of course they could do it!

Now I teach each part as its own song, going on to the next when I’m pretty sure the kids have the basics. I’ll spend several sessions singing the parts separately. When we’re ready to put the parts together, we identify a few kids in each group who are secure singers and confident they can carry a melody. I work with the others to get them to tune in to those section leaders. Most of the kids can follow along quite well. The few who have trouble, we put next to the strongest singers. We talk about the fact that singing, like anything else, is something that everyone can do, but some people have an easier time of it; so it is a group effort, with stronger singers helping others, less-secure singers depending on stronger singers, and so on. It takes leadership and a team effort to make the song sound great and feel good to sing.

Rounds fit into the category of beautiful songs. I can remember, as a kid, when I could hold my own part in a round, first having to start, later being able to come in on any part. I was pretty excited by each accomplishment. I see the same pleasure in kids today. Really pretty rounds include “Chairs to Mend,”* “Hey Ho, Nobody Home,”* “Hineh Ma Tov,”* “Haida,”* “Rose, Rose,”* “Vine and Fig Tree,”* “Peace Round”* (Jean Ritchie), and lots more. One I especially love is “Ring In the New Year”* (Alix & Anne Herrmann), and kids love it, too. For many years, one of my schools had a winter-holiday sing where each class or grade presented a song or dance for the rest of the school and the families. Our traditional ending was to have the sixth-grade class, divided into four groups, lead the entire gathering in the four-part round. The kids would ask for it throughout the rest of the year.

Fun, Funny, and Silly Songs

Two part songs on the lighter side are “Sippin’ Cider” and “On Ilkley Moor Bah T’at.”* The first, a fun old camp tune, is a straight sing-and-repeat song. I love to hear kids sing both parts. They’ll start with one part, and not wanting to miss out on anything, answer themselves. It’s harder to do that with “Ilkley Moor,” although they try. It’s more sophisticated, with the first word/note of the repeat starting on the last word/note of the lead. And the repeat actually has a different melody most of the time—it really is a verbal call and a musical answer. It is deliciously gory and gruesome, but with a moral. I do it without dialect, in a slightly different version than appears in Rise Up Singing.* It takes a bit of time to teach and learn, but even kids well into their teens love it!

“Piccolo Mini” is a great and challenging song. The only words are piccolo and mini, and the accented syllables change to fit the tune. The song repeats, getting faster and faster, and all are reduced to laughter by the end. “Sunny Side,” another fun song, is a parody of the old Carter Family song “Keep on the Sunny Side of Life.”* The chorus has been changed to “You’ll feel no pain as we drive you insane, / So stay on the sunny side of life.” The verses are ad-libbed on the spot, using old silly riddles such as, “Why did the boy throw the clock out the window?” and, “What do you lose when you stand up?” You have to be pretty clear about the ground rules for the jokes. Once the group is done challenging you, all settle in to have a wonderful time.

“Titanic”* and “Little Boxes”* (Malvina Reynolds) are two songs that are fun to sing and are also about serious things. They provide an opportunity to talk about satire and dark humor. The sinking of the Titanic, of course, was not funny at all. This particular version, which has come down through the camp repertoire, was probably more serious to start with. But I like to talk with kids about using humor as a way of making social criticism, which the song does. With “Little Boxes,” it’s important for the kids to understand just what the song is poking fun at.

Another three-part round that is both fun to sing and serious is “Don’t Put Your Dust” (“One Bottle of Pop”*). It has a zillion variations in name and words, but all are essentially the same song. As with “Sippin’ Cider” and “Ilkley Moor,” I teach the parts one at a time and put them together when I’m pretty sure the kids are ready. One year, a long time ago, a teacher of a sixth-grade class went to a demonstration against the building of a nuclear power plant on the coast in California. She came back all excited because one of the songs the demonstrators had sung was a variation of “Don’t Put Your Dust” (which was a favorite of that class), called “Don’t Build Your Nuke.” She taught us the words, and we started singing it often. Then one day a boy in the class said the last part was wrong. In the original song, the words are “One bottle pop, two bottle pop,” and so on up, to seven. In the protest version, it had been changed to “One rotten nuke, two rotten nukes” (etc.). This child said that it should really be “Six rotten nukes, five rotten nukes,” and so on down, to “no rotten nukes at all.” We all agreed and started singing it that way, and I still do, to this day.

There are funny and silly rounds for older kids, too, including “Have You Seen the Ghost of John,”* “Old Abram Brown,” “Life Is But a Melancholy Flower,” and, my favorite, “My Dame Has a Lame, Tame Crane.”*

Of course, not every kid will love every one of these songs. And there are many more songs that they will love. In my experience, if I love a song, they usually do, too. Absolutely the most important thing of all is to remember that loving to sing and having fun are the keys to a successful experience. The experience for kids—and adults, too—should be that the songs and singing are ultimately irresistible!

Jacki Breger has been singing and teaching music to kids of all ages for a million years and believes that singing can change the world.

Note: You can find a bunch of these songs—all those that are marked with an asterisk here—in the songbook Rise Up Singing, edited by Peter Blood and published by Sing Out! This book contains the lyrics, guitar chords, and discographies for more than 1,100 songs. “Lady of the Harbor” can be found on Si Kahn’s album In My Heart (Philo). “Say the Word” is on the Beatles’ Rubber Soul. “Ella’s Song” can be found on Sweet Honey in the Rock’s We All—Every One of Us (Flying Fish). “Siyahamba” and “You Can Dance” have both been published previously in Pass It On! (see the #27 fall 1997 and #29 spring 1998 issues, repectively). For the rest of the songs, you’ll have to consult a Girl Scout songbook, a Girl Scout, or a friend; or you can e-mail me (jackibreger@earthlink.net) and I will be happy to sing a tune on the phone or into your answering machine and send you the words I have. If any of you knows anything about the song “Suitors” (“There are suitors at my door”), I would like to hear from you.