Songs at camp

We sing a lot of songs camp, which is good for the young whippersnappers. Input for those incredible computers in their craniums. Songs come and go here, and there's often a very popular few. Last summer it was Galileo by the Indigo Girls. This summer it's Boulevard of Broken Dreams by Green Day, and Stairway to Heaven (more on that later).

Today is the farm fest, and I've chosen "Animal Farm" by the Kinks as the theme. I've helped kids make a giant, decorated song sheet with the words and chords on it. After the animal parade, we'll gather in the barn to share poetry and sing this song. And maybe someday, many years from now, magic will happen. The kid will be older, and far away, and someone with good taste will be playing an album called The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society, and Animal Farm will come on, and the Farm Festival at Camp Treetops will be recalled in its full glory.

Another popular song this summer is Wish You Were Here. Everyone wants to learn the riff on guitar, and sing the words at council. I always get a bit of a lump in my throat at these lines:

"How I wish, how I wish you were here
we're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl year after year"

Those words always make me think of my old friend John Eaton. He and I were in high school and college together, and several bands. And it's not like he's dead and gone. Heck, he's right there, at the bottom of the state I'm in, in NYC. I could probably find him in a web cam image, like finding Waldo in those picture books that were popular a few years back. John and I don't see each other much, but we have some powerful things in common, and Pink Floyd is one of them.

The song that the most kids are crazy about is Stairway to Heaven. For most of us, it's an overplayed joke. But to these kids, it's fresh and new. It doesn't have all the baggage that it does for most folks, associations with druggies and Wayne's World guitar types. It's just a long song with interesting lyrics, and a likeable melody. So the guitar kids at camp, and there are many of them, are all learning the parts of the song from each other and from me. I taught the intro to Jay on the ukulele, which has to be heard to be believed. And we sing it at camp, along with the Bob Dylan and Peter Paul and Mary songs. And when you peel away its history and give it a chance, it's a pretty fine outdoors mystery tune.

But its Kinks songs that I most enjoy slipping in on them. Education, enrichment, under the radar.

Jim