If you went to public elementary school in the early 1980’s and had music class

[Anonymous]

Germs my invisible dog

Purple people eater

Mary Mack all dressed in black

Go tell aunt rhoda

I got spurs that jingle jangle jingle

Colors, colors, we see them all around. Red on the stoplight, green on the trees, blue in the sky and sea….

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We sang a lot of patriotic songs and “Americana” songs

Oh beautiful for spacious skies
Yankee doodle
Old John Henry was a mighty man
Something about the Erie Canal
Darlin’ Clementine
Streets of Laredo (not USA but a tearjerker!)
The stars at night are big and bright
Oh Susannah
Cape cod girls
Something about a cat on a roof?

My school district was pretty poor and filled with immigrants but we had a decent music program. A lot of kids I grew up became professional or semi-pro musicians. I joined a jazz ensemble in fifth grade and composed songs with my little group. We won state competitions.

OMG the cat on the roof song!

Oh Senor Don Gatto was a cat,
On a high red roof Don Gato sat,
He was there to read a letter (meow meow meow),
Where the reading light was better (meow meow meow)
Twas a love note for Don Gato.

I remember he fell and broke his little solar plexus meow meow meow.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Germs my invisible dog

Purple people eater

Mary Mack all dressed in black

Go tell aunt rhoda

I got spurs that jingle jangle jingle

Colors, colors, we see them all around. Red on the stoplight, green on the trees, blue in the sky and sea….

OMG the colors song! I haven’t thought of that in 50 years.

[Anonymous]

We sang a lot of Broadway and popular music in the late 1960s in Catholic school taught by a nun. She had great taste in music. Still love those songs.

[Anonymous]

All the patriotic songs
- This land is our land
- My country tis of thee
- America the beautiful
- you’re a grand old flag
- Battle Hymn of the Republic

Folk/western
- Yippee Ki Yi Yo (Git along little dogies)
- Oh Susannah
- Clementine
- I’ve been working on the railroad
- skip to my Lou
- you are my sunshine
- the water is wide
- home on the range
- Yankee Doodle
- She’ll be coming around the mountain
- On top of ol Smokey
- camp town races
- zipee Dee do dah
- BINGO ad nauseum
- old McDonald
- row row row your boat
- shortning Bread

We also sang a song with a chorus that went “jump down turn around, pick a bale of cotton”

Grew up the south.

[Anonymous]

I don’t remember singing anything really Americana-ish. I remember lots of goofy stuff like Monster Mash and Purple People Eater.

West Coast city.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:All the patriotic songs
- This land is our land
- My country tis of thee
- America the beautiful
- you’re a grand old flag
- Battle Hymn of the Republic

Folk/western
- Yippee Ki Yi Yo (Git along little dogies)
- Oh Susannah
- Clementine
- I’ve been working on the railroad
- skip to my Lou
- you are my sunshine
- the water is wide
- home on the range
- Yankee Doodle
- She’ll be coming around the mountain
- On top of ol Smokey
- camp town races
- zipee Dee do dah
- BINGO ad nauseum
- old McDonald
- row row row your boat
- shortning Bread

We also sang a song with a chorus that went “jump down turn around, pick a bale of cotton”

Grew up the south.

I grew up in suburban NYC and we sang almost all of these as well. Some others I remember:
Ol' Dan Tucker
lots of Halloween songs (I mostly only remember one that went: H-A-double L-O-double U-double E-N spells Halloween)

Well I had a little chicky
and it wouldn't lay an egg
so I poured hot water
up and down it's leg
well my little chicky clucked
and my little chicky begged
and my little chicky laid me
a hard boiled egg

and there was another song to the same tune about trying to buy a donut with a nickel that had a hole in the middle. Not sure why we were singing songs about animal abuse and defacing money, but hey, it was the 80s. Our music teacher would bang out all the songs on her upright piano.

[Anonymous]

Anyone else sing that Lollipop, lollipop (oh lolly lollipop) song? The one where you made a popping sound with your thumb by sticking it in your mouth and pooping it out before pushing out against the inside of your cheek?

I remember being bad at the popping thing and feeling frustrated by it.

Also This Land is Your Land.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Anyone else sing that Lollipop, lollipop (oh lolly lollipop) song? The one where you made a popping sound with your thumb by sticking it in your mouth and pooping it out before pushing out against the inside of your cheek?

I remember being bad at the popping thing and feeling frustrated by it.

Also This Land is Your Land.

Popping, not pooping. Omg

[Anonymous]

Songs I remember include My Favorite Things from The Sound of Music, The Greatest Love of All by Whitney Houston, and Everyday People by Sly and The Family Stone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There were only a handful of school song books marketed to the US market in those decades. Most of your generation will have been exposed to an identical elementary music program.

My elementary music program was run by parent volunteers in elementary school, so we probably sang whatever music they liked there was no curriculum, it was whatever the grade level mom could play on the piano.

Our school librarian was our music teacher. I distinctly remember singing I Will Survive and High Hopes. I think we just sang songs that she liked.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Went to school in MoCo and we sang a lot of slave songs but didn't say that: Jimmy crack corn, swing low sweet chariot, nobody knows the trouble I've seen, my old Kentucky home

I went to school in MoCo starting in the 70s and am calling bulllsh!t on this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Went to school in MoCo and we sang a lot of slave songs but didn't say that: Jimmy crack corn, swing low sweet chariot, nobody knows the trouble I've seen, my old Kentucky home

I went to school in MoCo starting in the 70s and am calling bulllsh!t on this.

I don't know. We sang Swing Low Sweet Chariot in Fairfax County in the 80s.

I remember Halloween/"scary" songs we sang better than anything else because I loved them: Old Woman All Skin and Bones, Hill and Gully Rider...

[Anonymous]

I think it was achy breaky heart and I used to go to key School in Arlington, Virginia in the 1980s. And yes, most of us were a. Minority

[Anonymous]

I am fifty-seven now & yes, I attended public school in the early-eighties and had music class.

It was a looong time ago and seems like another lifetime ago - - but I do remember we sang “The Rainbow 🌈 Connection” from the Muppet Movie.

I used to love that song.