Boom did-y-ah-dah, Boom did-y-ah-dah, Dip dip and swing

[listersgirl]

Show of hands!

Who else had to sing "Land of the Silver Birch/My Paddle's Keen and Bright" year after year?

Comments

[dramaqueen-23.livejournal.com]

The one that goes like this?

Land of the silver birch,
Home of the bea-ver.
Something, something, something.
Something, somthing.
Rocky moutain, lake and shore
I shall return once more.

I don't think I ever had to sing it; however, I did have to learn how to play it on the piano.

[listersgirl]

But then your hands aren't free to pretend you're paddling a canoe!

[idella]

*boggles*

[circe-tigana.livejournal.com]

I've followed the wild goose flight in my day.

[listersgirl]

Ah, the terrible memories.

[starfishchick]

I know Land of the Silver Birch, but not the other one.

[listersgirl]

My paddle's keen and bright
Flashing with silver
Follow the wild goose flight
Dip, dip and swing
Dip, dip and swing her back
Flashing with silver
Swift as the wild goose flies
Dip, dip and swing

We always had to sing it in a round with the Birch. Woo?

[starfishchick]

That one I've NEVER heard of. Thank goodness. :)

[genarti]

...I always liked that one, when we sang it at camp.

*sheepish*

[zarahemla.livejournal.com]

We did one year in choir ... I think ... though my words are a bit different:

Land of the silver birch
home of the beaver
where still the mighty moose
wanders at will:
blue lake and rocky shore
I will return once more

{{add in the boom did-y thing as you like}}

Oh, the memories.

[listersgirl]

And here I thought it was only Canadians who were subjected to it. :D

[marginalia.livejournal.com]

oh jeeze. because i needed that earworm first thing in the morning. and i don't really know it, just like one bit over and over again. *stabs self in ear*

[listersgirl]

Exactly my reaction when it jumped out at unsuspecting me from the CD I'm cataloguing.

*fear*

[marginalia.livejournal.com]

i just realized how pathetic it is that the crack of noon is first thing in the morning. but i haven't had my coffee yet! and i was up til three reading! *defensive*

:)

Hand

[morag-gunn.livejournal.com]

High on a rocky ledge
I'll build my wigwam
Close to the water's edge
Silent and still

Re: Hand

[listersgirl]

I suppose it's better than Kumbayah. :D

*raisehand*

[sarcasma.livejournal.com]

We had a set of songs that we did every week in "music time" with the librarian. It was basically a singalong, and this was my music education until Grade 5. A few folky things, some anti-war 60s stuff, anything by the Beatles, Muppets, or Gordon Lightfoot... yeah. It was odd.

ETA: I meant to mention that we didn't have word sheets or anything, so I now know all of these songs with those weird ellided kid-lyrics one comes up with. That, too, is odd.

Re: *raisehand*

[listersgirl]

Heh - that sounds exactly like my elementary school music education. Folk song singalong, complete with guitar! And then sometimes we got percussion instruments to play.

Re: *raisehand*

[idella]

There's a verse of Sound(s?) of Silence that still surprises me every time it goes by.

[globetrotter1.livejournal.com]

I am blissfully, blissfully ignorant. :-D

[listersgirl]

How did you manage that?

Oh, wait, Quebec elementary school, right?

[globetrotter1.livejournal.com]

Exactly.

[listersgirl]

I'd say you lucked out, but you probably had something just as obnoxious. :D

[globetrotter1.livejournal.com]

I've blocked it all out. Hee.

[eanja]

Down in the forest,
deep in the lowlands
My heart cries out for thee,
hills of the north.
Blue lake etc., etc.

I still know this one by heart, and I think my son even did it. I haven't heard the other one, though.

[listersgirl]

That definitely seems to be the dividing line - those who had to do the two-song round, and those who got away with just the one.

[eanja]

I think we learned this when we were 7 or 8- I'm not sure we were up to 2-song rounds even.

[idella]

Hell yeah.

[listersgirl]

Although, you know, until today I always thought it was "My Paddle's Gleaming Bright".

[idella]

I always thought they were two verses of the same song. But...they're two different songs?

*boggles again*

*is quite possibly over-tired*

[listersgirl]

It would appear so. And I bet there's someone out there who thinks he or she is *really* clever for putting the two together.

[idella]

Also: crunches!

[listersgirl]

Is that a reminder?

Damn.

:D

[emiline.livejournal.com]

Oh so many times. I spent waaay too many years involved in Guiding.

[listersgirl]

Side note: I always wanted to be a Guide, but I was too old when I joined Brownies, so I would have had to walk up instead of flying, and that was just not good enough. So I quit.

Ahh, pre-teen drama.

[emiline.livejournal.com]

And did you have the drama over who was the sixer in your group in Brownies? Most of my group thought I'd gotten it only because my mom was the Brown Owl, but I think it was because I was always at the meetings (yes, because of my mom, but whatever) whereas the other people in my group were not always there. Drama, indeed.

[forzani.livejournal.com]

ahah, yes. grade four music class. there were clapping rhythms to go along with 'land of the silver birch' that no one could ever understand.

[listersgirl]

It's like some sort of pre-adolescent rite of passage.