A Song for Every Occasion

45 years of singing every day with 100 elementary students prepared me to take seriously the phrase, “a song for every occasion.” Songs about the seasons, about holidays, about geography and history, songs illuminating musical forms like canon and rondo, poetic forms like limericks and cumulative verses, songs about plants and animals and feelings and ideas. Whatever you got, chances are there’s a song about it and part of my job was to know them and have them at my fingertips and on the tip of my tongue. And if there wasn’t a song, well, I could always make one up, either spontaneously with a. little blues guitar or compositionally. And I did.

 

Not only a song for every occasion, but songs that fit well with different ages, different backgrounds, different situations. Many songs qualify as “all of the above” but sometimes needing some thoughtful re-arranging. So when I taught first grade yesterday on Valentine’s Day, Love Somebody, Love Is Something If You Give it Away, Skinnamarink, You Are My Sunshine and the play- party dance Bow Belinda with its “won’t you be my darling?” fourth phrase, all were just perfect for that age. Later that day, my love song choices for the 80 and 90 years old at The Jewish Home included a few of the above, but went on to a classical repertoire— Beethoven’s Fur Elise, Elgar’s Salut d’ Amor, Di Capua’s O Sole Mio, Grieg’s Solveig’s Song, Herbert’s Ah! Sweet Mystery of Life and opera arias from Bellini, Puccini, Offenbach and Saint-Saens, all of which created a different kind of Valentine Day celebration. Once I crossed into the jazz standard repertoire, the number of love songs increased exponentially. I had to limit myself to Gershwin’s Embraceable You, Cole Porter’s I Love You, Jerome Kern’s Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, Hoagy Carmichael’s The Nearness of You, Meredith Wilson’s Till There Was You, Victor Young’s When I Fall in Love and of course, Rodger’s and Hart’s My Funny Valentine.

 

The day before the songs for the occasion—Black History Month— were the Civil Rights repertoire from the 60’s shared with the 4^th grade. Free at Last, If I Had a Hammer, Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me ‘Round, We Shall Not Be Moved, One Little Step Toward Freedom. In one class, one kid caught the spirit and jumped up to start marching around the room while singing Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody. One by one, the other kids joined in and I encouraged them all. Not in my “lesson plan,” but exactly the right thing for the occasion, made more artistic by me suggesting two places in the song to freeze and make a shape. From there to We Shall Not Be Moved and I showed them how to link elbows. Finally, the One Little Step where they SHALL move, because they’re choosing on their own how and when and where—TOWARD freedom. I ended class by encouraging the kids to share and even lead these songs if they find themselves out at a protest in San Francisco. How powerful that would be! 

 

So, my friends, as both South Africa and Estonia and the 60’s American Civil Rights protesters can testify, singing can be a powerful form of resistance to injustice. As the elders at The Jewish Home can testify, singing can be a powerful healing that helps comfort the pained body and soothe the agitated mind and give voice to the heart’s longing. All of which means we would do well to be prepared with “a song for every occasion.” 

 

And then sing it.