Singing through the decades: 2. 1970-1974

 INTRODUCTION

Yes I know I said I would do a page for each decade, but the 1970s were my teenage years, where like most teenagers, I changed and developed quite a lot, so the world inhabited by ten year old me still at primary school in 1970 was a rather different one to that inhabited by a 19 year old undergraduate. So I've split the 70s down the middle for the purposes of this blog.

1.Bible Class

At about age 11 I graduated from Sunday School to a group for teenagers called Bible Class. This was on Sunday afternoon (just like Sunday School). I didn't particularly enjoy it as the leaders had a rather dull approach, but I learnt some new songs, from the very trendy books we used at the time called 'Youth Praise' (Book 1 was green and Book 2 was orange)

Here is a song from one of them that I have never encountered since ... cant find it anywhere online! There are a few lines I cant remember hence the 'la la las'

2. School Choir

So now I am at Grammar school, and at some point I joined the Junior Choir. (For reasons that I can't begin to understand now, I never joined the Senior choir - even though I was taking O level Music at the time .... I can't understand NOT being in a choir now, when one was freely available to me!!) This was the first time I sang alto, something I have been doing ever since.  A memorable performance we did, along with other girls taking part as actors and dancers was the cantata 'Captain Noah and his Floating Zoo. I can still remember most of the words ... saw it performed by a local choir in 2019 which brought back such vivid memories of school...

3. Family

We were a musical family and we sang a lot. (For instance we made up songs about my sister's toy dog!) The song I bring to you here is not made up by us, but it is probably one of my first attempts at musical arrangement/performance ... certainly the first recording of such a thing. My two sisters and I used to sing it on long car journeys with my middle sister singing the tune, youngest sister singing a floaty descant, and myself adding an alto part. This is a genuine ancient audio recording of us singing, retrieved from a cassette tape from the 1970's (so quality is not brilliant) 

4. Youth Fellowship

This was a group for teenagers/young twenties after the Gospel service on Sunday evenings. It involved chatting under dim coloured lights with Johnny Cash playing in the background, and munching on KP Skips ... then a time of singing and finally an epilogue. The songs were all written in capital letters by hand, on thick sheets of coloured card that fitted into a home-made easel. Looking back, the leaders put in an awful lot of effort! This was my favourite song, and I believe it was written by a friend of one of our leaders ... Google certainly doesn't seem to know it anyway!!

5. School Music lessons

Although I eventually went on to take O level music, involving actual study of the subject, learning about composers and Music theory etc, lower down the school whenever 'Music' was on the timetable it seemed to consist entirely of the class gathering around the grand piano and singing folk songs. (No other subject involved such a massive change in focus from the lower school to O level). 'Red River Valley' is one song we sang in those sessions, that I have not encountered since. It turns out that there are endless versions of this song, and I couldn't find a recording using the words I knew. But I did find some sheet music. You can see the first page here, and the second page as a masked preview ... the missing words on page two should be '...hasten to bid us adieu, But remember...'

6. Way to Life Crusade

Dick Saunders was an evangelist who toured the country running evangelistic 'crusades'. Three times in my formative years I recall him in our area, in a tent in the Christchurch Park in the 60s, in a dome shaped tent on waste ground at Bramford Rd in the early 70s and in Burlington Baptist church when I was in sixth form (this time I was in the choir!) The theme song for his crusades, certainly the early ones, was 'Life is Wonderful. Sadly, once more I have been unable to find a recording. So here is the music.

(and yes, I have just realised I got this from Youth Praise, see first item on page ... I do have both Youth Praise books so I could have looked up the words to 'Little candle' ... but preferred to do it from memory!! even if it meant some words were missing!)

7. Dad's Quartet

I already mentioned my father's male voice quartet in my Desert Island Discs post (as they used to practice weekly in our house, thus preventing me from watching Top of the Pops!!) This was group of friends who sang old fashioned gospel songs in churches and Old People's homes. Many of these old songs I first heard in the context of this quartet (and because of this I sometimes had difficulty picking out the tune, as their counter tenor had a very piercing voice, and he rarely if ever carried the melody!!) This is one song I will always associate with them. Their arrangement changed the rhythm on the final verse from 4/4  to 6/8.

8. School Assembly

Before we move on to the next 'era' I wanted to revisit the school assembly. Now at Grammar School this was a much more formal event than at Primary school, with echoes of civic religion. There was not very much overlap between the hymns at school and those 'Brethreny' hymns and Gospel Songs that I knew from my own background,  We used an Anglican hymnbook called 'Songs of Praise'. Many of the hymns we sung are standard mainstream Anglican hymns that I still sing today in the URC, but a few are indelibly associated in my mind with this particular setting - I don't think I have ever sung this hymn since school. 

Singing through the decades: 1. 1960s

INTRODUCTION - Singing through the decades

I decided to split my life mostly into decades for the purpose of this blog, (it's quite handy having been born in a year ending in zero, for the decades correspond to decades of my life!) to give a flavour of what was going on for me musically in each time period. For this section of the blog I will concentrate on songs I have learnt to sing, in whatever context .... since recorded music that I listened to has its own place in other posts (such as my recent 'Desert Island Discs' post) In every decade of my life I have learnt new songs, in various contexts, that are forever defined in my memory by the setting in which I first learnt them. These are songs that can transport me instantly to a particular time and place.

For each decade I have tried to come up with a selection of songs representing different aspects of my life in those times .... so one example only from each source.

1960s

1. Sunday School

I started Sunday School at age 3. So this represents my first exposure to songs outside the home environment that were aimed specifically at my age group. This is one of the earliest I recall learning.

  

I am H-A-P-P-Y

I am H-A-P-P-Y

I know I am, I'm sure I am

I'm H-A-P-P-Y

2. 'Morning Meeting'. 

From an early age I was taken along with my parents every Sunday morning to the Brethren 'Gospel Hall' where they worshipped. The Open Brethren did not have any planned Order of Service, and no musical instruments to accompany the singing in the Morning Meeting. We used 'The Believers Hymn Book' and my father was the 'precentor' who chose the tune, pitched it, and started everybody singing. People sang in harmony in spite of having words-only copies of the hymn book (and there were no set tunes for most hymns anyway, these could vary depending on how many other hymns with the same meter had been sung already that day) I guess this was where my love of singing in harmony, and the ease with which I can do it without music, may have originated!

This is a hymn I learnt in that context that I have rarely encountered since then, and when I do, it takes me straight back to those Sunday mornings, sitting in silence on a hard wooden chair, waiting for somebody to speak or pray or announce a hymn

3. Family parties

Every Christmas the extended family (on my father's side) got together on successive days for what we called a 'party' ... these were actually quite sober affairs but always with games. And one of the games involved a song... and a curtain ring on a big loop of string that was passed around secretly with one person in the centre trying to locate it. It was called 'Paddy to London' Google knows nothing of this song/game, although it clearly has a similar origin to this one with slightly different words and a completely different tune. So here is my recreation of the Bailey family version

4. Grandma

Thinking of family parties, brings me on to my paternal grandmother, who sang around the house as she worked. This is the song I associate with her, that I have never encountered elsewhere since. I do recall the words she sang being slightly different though; where this version has 'turn turn your back from doubting' I seem to recall that Grandma used to sing something like 'Leave all your cares behind you' ....can any other family members confirm this?

5. School Assembly

The hymns we sang in Assembly at Primary School were an almost entirely different set to one those I knew from 'The Hall' (which was how we normally referred to our place of worship). And many were ones that I haven't encountered since, such as 'Daisies are our silver', 'When a knight won his spurs' and 'Come let us remember the joys of the town'. I think they came from the BBC Hymn book for schools ... but I cannot find one online that looks familiar. The one I have chose to represent school assembly has a lively tune and retells a Bible story from The Old Testament

6. School Playground

Here is perhaps the first item on this page that is more widely known among the general population. Singing games in the playground were popular and this one came with a complicated set of actions, linking hands and twisting the chain thus formed. I wonder if the origins of this song refer to a ship that first sailed (or sank) on that particular date? The song came back to me in 1978 when parts of it featured in the hit song by Brian and Michael about the painter Lowry (Matchstalk Men and Matchstalk Cats and Dogs)

The Big Ship Sails on the Alley alley O

7. School Choir

I have been singing in choirs for most of my life. The first was at Primary school where we were taught by our very musical Welsh Headmaster. We sang folk songs from  around the world (including some in other languages), also songs from contemporary films like 'The Sound of Music' and 'Mary Poppins'. One of the foreign songs that stuck in my mind, that I haven't heard much of since, was an Israeli folk song called Hava Nagila

8. Children's Corner 

On Wednesday evenings at 6.30pm we were back at 'The Hall' again (along with the neighbours' children) for a children's meeting with songs, quizzes, Bible stories and a 'Pilgrim's Progress' filmstrip serial (state of the art technology for those days!) introduced by dramatic music from 2001 Space Odyssey (Strauss). The songs we sang here were different ones to Sunday School, and some, such as this one, were unintelligible to me as a young girl because of the language, but has nevertheless stuck in my mind even though I haven't heard or sung it since. I still don't really understand the use of the word 'portion' in this song! Google doesn't seem to know about this song, so I will have to sing it for you!

9. Gospel Meeting

6.30 on Sunday Evening was the Gospel meeting, very different in character from the morning meeting - for example everyone sat facing the front in rows, there was a pulpit in use, an order of service planned in advance, an electronic organ (played by my uncle) and a different Hymn Book. In my later memories of the Gospel Hall the book was 'Hymns of Faith' (Scripture Union) but in the 1960s it was possibly 'Sankeys' (Sacred Songs and Solos). This is a hymn that I will always associate with that meeting (even though it is not uncommon for me to sing it in more recent times) because my uncle always played it 'wrong' in the rhythm of the first bar.