Sing-along Café 2025-01-30

It's February?!!!

This post is about Thursday's Sing-along Café, last month, 2 days ago. Time is a funny thing.

We taked about how Disney movie music has changed over time, and how it hasn't. One thing we were happy to notice is that there are still songs that have long instrumental sections that allow us to eat our muffins (apple this time, and similar to the blueberry recipe) and talk about the songs. We spent the whole time on Disney musicals, really the animated movies. We remember movies from when we were kids, when our kids were little, and even watching with grandkids. Some of us are happy to have grandkids to go and see the Disney animated movies with while others are happy to go without kids too. Because, there's so much in the movies that's easier to appreciate as an adult, not just the music. Now we are making lists of movies to watch or re-watch.

So many of the themes of the movies, the songs too obviously, are really important now. Community, family, respecting people (and ourselves) the way we are, authenticity, recognizing the villians and the heroes, and recognizing our unconscious biases. We started with Frozen's Let it Go, as promised, and the power of that song is inspiring. The unexpected villian plot twist is also powerful. We sure fell for that one. We talked about the role of nature in so many of the newer movies, and the different cultures that we learn about. Thank God (and that character from Moana "You're Welcome"?) for our beautiful planet and its fascinating diversity!

Here's a link to an article I found about Disney's depictions of different cultures.

We used two playlists, one called Disney Hits and another called Disney Essentials.

Here's a list of some of the songs we listened to, talked about, and sang together:

Let is Go and
Love is an Open Door and
Do You Want to Build a Snowman?, from Frozen
How Far I'll Go and
You're Welcome, from Moana
The Family Madrigal and
We Don't Talk about Bruno, from Encanto
I'll Make a Man out of You, from Mulan (sung by Donny Osmond)
The Circle of Life and
Can You Feel the Love Tonight from the Lion King (sung by Elton John, not that other band)
Go the Distance from Hercules (my favourite after Let it Go, I think)

Next week, we'll take a break from Disney and we'll sing songs by Black musicians and composers for our first sing-along of Black History Month, popular music that you will know and be able to sing along with. Stevie Wonder, Bob Marley, Michael Jackson, Beyoncé and Canadians like Dan Hill and Jully Black and The Weeknd and Tebey.

Please join us. We're growing a little, but there's lots of room for more friends on the couches and armchairs in the fellowship room. I always bake a little extra.

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