Skip to main content

Sing-along Café Thursday, November 6th, 2025

Another wonderful afternoon! I was inspired by some planning I was doing for my choir (the York Region Community Choir). I was looking at wartime songs to use for sing-alongs at a performance next week, when I realized that I could add them to a playlist I had. The playlist is "Songs for Keeping Love Alive". We hadn't used it before, so it was new to everyone. 

We started with a couple of songs from the WWll era, songs about love and faithfulness surviving a separation. Then, we had a few songs about how a man can show his love for a woman, and how couples can stay together, what keeps a couple going forever (having fun, we agreed). Looking at the lyrics of love songs is always fun. Sometimes, it can be a little embarrassing, funny, and mostly relateable. Something I had intened to sing but forgot was Tie a Yellow Ribbon 'Round the Old Oak Tree by Tony Orlando & Dawn. Next time! There are lots of songs on this playlist that we can do another time. 

We talked a little about how we choose songs to sing when we meet, from my list and also from things we think of when we're talking, like the Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars song. I always assemble many more songs than we can possibly sing, but not all the songs will appeal to everyone and sometimes there's a song that nobody knows but me. Some songs are from when we were young, some from when our parents were young, and some are popular now.

Here's a sample of what we sang this afternoon: 

  •  Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree by the Andrews Sisters
  • I'll Be Seeing You by Michael Bublé
  • Die With a Smile by Lady Gaga & Bruno Mars
  • One Hundred Ways by Quincy Jones & James Ingram
  • When a Man Loves a Woman by Michael Bolton
  • Together Forever by Rick Astley
  • Let's Stay Together by Al Green
  • You're Still the One by Shania Twain
  • Still the One by Orleans
  • Sealed With a Kiss by Brian Hyland
  • Signed, Sealed, Delivered (I'm Yours) by Stevie Wonder
  • And I Love Her by the Beatles 

 https://pamelaalderman.com/tie-a-yellow-ribbon/

 

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Sing-along Café Thursday, October 30th, 2025

We are ready for Halloween!  My theme today was Halloween. I found a couple of playlists of Halloween music on Apple Music, and we started with the one that is designated as a sing-along playlist. Apple Music Sing is a feature that I don't have on my devices, but there are playlists that are made for it, so all the songs on the playlist have scrolling lyrics. That's good enough for us.  We started with a song that we loved singing, but we wondered what made it a Halloween selection. The others were pretty obvious. I made a connection with newer songs about love being magical and the singer feeling like he's under a spell and two much older songs, by Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr. There were a lot of similarities. And, we noticed that those older songs are pretty hard to sing along with. Sometimes we think that new songs are tricky. We laughed about how we "know" lots of songs and can sing the chorus, but have no idea what the words in the verses are, maybe beca...
Post a Comment
Read more

Sing-along Café Thursday, October 23rd, 2025

It was a lovely afternoon in lovely company!  The first afternoon café was very nice, but we really hope to see more people there next week. It's a good time of day for singing, and one hour is a perfect amount of time. Parking is a bit more difficult during the day, and we have to remember that we cannot enter the parking lot behind the church, the manse lot, because of the small children there. Leave some time to find parking, or park down by Riverwalk Commons, lots of spots there.  Today’s theme was instrumental parts of songs that we sing along with. "Songs with Instrumentals that we Sing" is the name of my playlist. Sometimes there’s a big brass fanfare or a drum fill or an electric guitar solo that’s so good that we sing that in addition to singing the words, and sometimes it’s the best part, where suddenly everyone is singing (they might not even call it singing, but it is!). Imagine a bar band playing Sweet Caroline. The whole bar sings the "ba-ba-ba!" ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Thursday Singing Night Reviews- on hold for now

My usual practice to write a review of our Thursday singing nights, Sing-along Café, is on hold.  I haven't felt secure about this 'ministry' of mine. In my mind, it's a wonderful and important thing, but it's not taking off. And, I've been wondering if my music ministry at Trinity should move in a different direction.  I suggested adding a choir practice in this time slot, for a pop/contemporary Sunday choir, which I could run with a volunteer accompanist, since it is the traditional, usual time for church choirs. Another choir was not feasible, so that's not happening (yet/ I'm still hopeful). I have been asked to work with the drama club on the music for the Christmas Pageant again, and those rehearsals have moved from Wednesdays to Thursdays. So, I'm now wondering how to manage my Thursday nights with that added in.   One possibility is to start the Sing-along Café at 6:30, at the same time as the drama club. We could invite the parents/guardians...
Post a Comment
Read more