As I've mentioned, I'm starting a year 4-5 choir at our kids' school next term. I'm quite excited about possible repertoire. There is so much fantastic Australian stuff available. These guys publish great choral music. I'm a big fan of Paul Jarman's beautiful work and I also had them send me samples of Ian Munro's settings of Andy Griffiths' verses. (For the uninitiated, Andy Griffiths penned books like 'The Day My Bum Went Psycho" and "Just Disgusting" and is renown for his ... childish... humour.) To make the choir appeal to 10 year old boys, I thought it would be good to start with some funny and slightly on-the-edge songs. The Munro/Griffiths samples I looked at were good, but harmonically and rhythmically too ambitious. So I thought I'd try my own.
Take this delightful little rhyme from Andy Griffiths' Bad Book:
Penny McRose picked her nose
Morning, noon and night.
She picked it until her head caved in
And her family died of fright.
Being such a rhyme, I thought I'd wed it to a classic tune. Like this one:
Can you see how right it is?
'Give us peace' indeed. Everyone knows this is Pig Latin for 'Donna picked her nose'. Seems like a fair reimagining to me.
ReplyDeleteAnd they say Queensland is culturally backwards! ;-)
Simone, this made me laugh very hard. I think it would be perfect.
ReplyDeleteSo nice is the tune that your audience might miss the rhyme and NOT die of fright!
ReplyDeleteOur junior school choir sang a song about what they absolutely wouldn't do - the suspense built and the final line was "pick my nose". Wish I could remember the name of the song, but it was fun!