Sing-along Café 2025-01-16

The first Sing-along Café of 2025 was quiet, just 4 of us, but lovely. I brought some banana bread and buttercup squash muffins that I had baked. Some tea was sipped. And, we sang and talked and laughed.

I had us start with a look at the Christmas and Hanukkah playlist, thinking that we hadn't had enough Christmas music in December. Nah. We were fine. But, we sang I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas.

From there, we went free-form. Ian mentioned having seen a video of the Carpenters. I can't remember a propos of what. We sang and talked about body image and eating disorders, enjoying a ton of Carpenters songs on the Apple playlist called Carpenters Essentials. (Wow, did they have a lot of great songs!) There we talked about my choir a bit, and then, from Bless the Beasts and Children (they have no voice, no choice), we talked about Children's rights. It reminded me of the reading I'd been doing about Autism and reminded Thain about her time teaching.

After the Carpenters, we went on to Musicals. I don't know how we got there, but it was fun! We found the Apple Playlist Classic Broadway Essentials. It inspired so many fun memories: Memories of shows experienced with family and friends, a trip to New York, movies, singing, and more singing.

Here's a sample of songs from the evening:

We've Only Just Begun
Top of the World
Yesterday Once More
Close to You
Willkommen
Don't Rain on My Parade
My Favourite Things
Memory
Wouldn't it be Loverly
Tonight
America
Anything You Can Do
All I Ask of You

Next week, we're going to sing Disney songs. We'll start with the classics, and then move to some of the more recent movies. I can hardly wait. And, I don't have to make a playlist. There are Disney albums and playlists aplenty. Do you think they'll let me sing Let it Go again?

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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 ...

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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