Sing-along Café 2024-11-07

This week, we had the best theme of all: Singing!

Songs about singing and singers was a fun theme-lots of great songs to sing- and they led to lots of interesting conversations.

We ended up spending some time listening to songs that were not in the theme because we wanted to hear more of a certain singer’s voice. I guess that was on-theme. Singers voices can be so attractive that we are mesmerized or amazed, moved by the sound of their voice as much as by the songs they sing. Two of the singers with outstanding voices were Enya and Ellie Goulding.

We had a laugh listening to Leonard Cohen sing about singing with his rough voice and barely-singing style, but loved his song and appreciated his offering of it, remembering that one of my Big Beliefs is that everyone can and should sing and that no voice is bad.

I shared pumpkin muffins that I had baked and made myself a cup of ginger peach tea. It was a lovely evening in lovely company.

Here is a selection of the songs we sang and listened to:

Do-Re-Mi by Julie Andrews (from the Sound of Music- can you believe she’s still acting, and is the voice of the narrator, Lady Whistledown, on Bridgestone)
How can I Keep from Singing by Enya and by Libera
Sing by the Carpenters
Sing by Pentatonix (we listened to and watched a few of their videos and were reminded of the Nylons, a Canadian a cappella group- singing without accompaniment is special)
Song Sung Blue by Neil Diamond
Singin’ in the Rain by Gene Kelly, Debbie Reynolds, and JJ Heller
Your Song by Ellie Goulding
When Smokey Sings by ABC
I’ll Have to Say I Love You in a Song by Jim Croce (another beautiful voice)
I Write the Songs by Barry Manilow
Magic Power by Triumph (a Canadian band- I'm young, I'm wild, and I'm free. Got the magic power of the music in me)
Riptide by Vance Joy (reminds me of singing with my daughters at campfires)
Love Song by Sara Bareilles
Sing a Happy Song by George McCrae (Sing la la-la-la-la cha-locka-locka-locka!)
You Got Me Singing by Leonard Cohen

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Thursday, April 18 Sing-along Café Review

The theme for the evening was: Songs with La-las (and other nonsense: ooh, doo-dah, na-na, scoobie-doobie, bum-ba-bum, hey!). I call all of these little non-word lyrics la-las. They're often my favourite part of a song. Everyone can sing those words, usually. With scat singing, not usually, and with yodeling, not everyone. But, think about the Beatles song Hey Jude. At the end, everyone can sing along with the na-nas and some of us even like to harmonize with them. When my daughter was writing songs, I urged her to put some nonesense la-las in her songs. Don't worry about finding beautiful, powerful words for all the verses, or all the lines of the chorus. Sometimes, the lack of words makes a melody more powerful. Here's the list of songs we sang and listened to: Can't Get You Out of My Head by Kylie Minogue Everything by Michael Bublé Those Were the Days by Mary Hopkin Hey Jude by the Beatles Tom's Diner by Suzanne Vega &DNA De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da

Thursday, April 11 Sing-along Café Review

The theme for the evening was: Songs with Instumentals that We Sing. The easiest way to introduce this theme is "Sweet Caroline, BA-BA-BA!". Everyone sings along with the brass section, singing like trumpets. There's also a little instrumental interlude that I sing along with. I almost always sing la-las (or ba-ba, da-da, nya-nya, doo, dit, bop...) for the instrumental introductions and interludes in songs. I sing with classical instrumental music, joking that "I know all the words." I'm not the only one. You do this too. Here's the list of songs we sang: Sweet Caroline by Neil Diamond A Taste of Honey by Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass Wipe Out by the Surfaris The Fool on the Hill by the Beatles I'll Never Fall in Love Again by Dionne Warwick Windy by The Association Careless Whisper by George Michael True by Spandau Ballet Down Under by Men at Work Feeling Good by Michael Bublé More Than a Feeling by Boston Baker Street by Gerry Raffer

Trinity Newmarket Singers

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