- Blowin’ in the Wind
- The Marvelous Toy
- La Cucaracha
- The Ash Grove
- Tzena Tzena
- Cileto Lindo
- Moon of Silver White
- Flash Jack from Gundagai
- I've been Working on the Railroad
- The Happy Wanderer
In 1970s Australia, school music programmes included lessons via radio from the national broadcaster (ABC). The lessons were piped through the PA system to each classroom. The large wooden box speaker above the blackboard was as much a fixture as the framed portrait of Queen Elizabeth 2nd and the useless ceiling-fan. We’d lean forward, elbows on the desk, gazing into space or doodling on the songbook as presenters with quasi-English accents walked us through music basics.
We were taught songs from around the world, including quaint English ditties, European folks songs, the occasional mysterious "Oriental" number and slightly grandiose Italian songs. "Negro spirituals" were especially common, the lyrics written in a vernacular now likely be considered racist.
Other songs questionable by today’s standards included those about:
- Sick and dying childen (luckily, they could be cured with Shortnin’ Bread)
- Miserable working conditions (Drill, Ye Tarriers)
- Mocking someone as "cock-eyed" (The Drummer and the Cook - “with her one eye on the pot and the other up the chimney”
- The lazy, useless wife of a Scotsman (The Wee Cooper of Fife)
- An old woman who died after swallowing a variety of animals (There Was an Old Lady … )
- A monster being run over by a tram (The
Ombly Gombly)
There was a never-ending song (Chuffa-Luffa Steam Train) and a ridiculously short song which I will write here in its entirety:
“There was on old crow / Sat upon a clod /
That’s the end of my song / That’s odd”
Certainly it gave us a sense of mastery ("Mum, I learned a whole song in 15 seconds!"). Songs sung 'in rounds' were popular, such as Row Row Row the Boat and Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree.**
Certainly it gave us a sense of mastery ("Mum, I learned a whole song in 15 seconds!"). Songs sung 'in rounds' were popular, such as Row Row Row the Boat and Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree.**
Nonsense songs were included to encourage those who weren't musically inclined. The nonsense reached tremendous and very 1970-ish heights one year when the ABC ran with the theme of space travel, apparently inventing songs especially for the occasion.
If anybody else remembers trippy tunes about the “astronautical ship” on which Zolt the Third took us to the “Gracious Star of Zap” then by all means
help me relive the horror.
Please do share memories you have about any primary/elementary school music programmes.
** Australian pop group Men at Work worked a distinctive riff from Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree into their anthemic hit The Land Down Under and made it more enjoyable than I EVER remember it being at school.
