Primary Songs

(This was originally published July 11, 2012.)

I mentioned a little while ago that we listen to lots of Primary songs. Between those and the "you're okay" song (it has the melody from Jingle Bells), we are usually able to calm J down. So we like them.

Even so, we still shudder sometimes at how out of tune the kids can be, and sometimes the songs bring back interesting memories from childhood. For example:


(During "Oh What Can You Do in the Summertime")
 Kevin: I never liked this song. I spent my summers outside working in the heat, so I never got to do any of these things.
(As the song progresses): "Do you fish in a stream"
Kevin: "No!"
"or lazily dream"
"No!"
...
"or drink lemonade"
"NO!!!"
Poor guy.

(During "Shine On" or some other song)
Kyra: I didn't like this one so much. It didn't have a good picture.
Kevin: good picture?
Kyra: You know, the picture on the page. Didn't you judge the Primary songs based on their pictures?
Kevin: . . .
Turns out not every kid looked at the Children's Songbook regularly.

(During "Popcorn Popping")
"Spring has brought me such a nice surprise, blossoms popping right before my eyes"
Kevin: Blossoms? Did they change the words?
Kyra: No, it's always been blossoms. We all just sing it wrong.
Kevin: No wonder I never understood that song. I just thought it was a stupid song. Why would popcorn grow on apricot trees?
Thanks, Mom, for bringing apricot blossoms to Primary when you were chorister. I think it cleared up a lot of confusion.

(During "When My Mother Calls Me" or "Pioneer Children Were Quick to Obey" or "When We're Helping We're Happy")
Kyra: My mom used to sing this to me a lot.

(During "Fun to Do")
"Cleaning my room is fun to do, fun to do to do to do . . ."
Kevin: These songs are full of propaganda.
Another time . . .
Kevin: We're going to make sure this is J's favorite song.

(During "My Flag")
Kyra: This was my favorite song. I used to do that one thing with the translucent pegs where you would stick them in a screen and make a flag and sing this (I know this from family videos).
Kevin: Lite Brite?
Kyra: yeah!
Kevin: I always wanted one of those. Also Power Wheels.
Kyra: I wanted Easy Bake.

(During "You've Had a Birthday")
Kyra: This was also my favorite song. Also, it was the only birthday song I really liked. The rest were weird.
Kevin: Yeah, I didn't like them either. Did you not like them because they had weird words like "zippidy"?
Kyra: Yeah, or "children." You know, "Happy happy birthday, children dear." It was so formal sounding. We were kids, not children! Also, "Feliz." Why did they make us sing that song? The chorister would just mutter some gibberish and we would repeat it, but then we'd forget it.
Apparently we're opinionated about our birthday songs around here.

Anyway, those are some of our reactions to Primary songs these days. Do you have any memories or strong feelings about any songs? Also, did anyone else care about the pictures?