Songs NOT to sing in nursing homes!

Subject: RE: Songs NOT to sing in nursing homes!
From: Amergin
Date: 14 Dec 02 - 12:14 PM

Subject: RE: Songs NOT to sing in nursing homes!
From: Genie - PM
Date: 04 Dec 02 - 09:43 PM

and be your own Secret Santa, too!



is that what you're doing, Genie? bg

Subject: RE: Songs NOT to sing in nursing homes!
From: Genie
Date: 15 Dec 02 - 06:56 AM

Do you mean am I being my own Secret Santa, Nathan? Nah.

But here's another of those song titles that takes on new meaning in nursing homes:

"He'll Have To go"

Subject: RE: Songs NOT to sing in nursing homes!
From: GUEST
Date: 20 Jan 03 - 01:45 PM

Subject: RE: Songs NOT to sing in nursing homes!
From: Genie
Date: 20 Jan 03 - 02:00 PM

That "Papa's Getting Old Mama's Getting Hot" sounds like a good 'un. I'd like to hear it.

Genie

Subject: RE: Songs NOT to sing in nursing homes!
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 21 Jan 03 - 08:55 AM

I had some friends who were about to start singing 'Lord of the Dance' at a concert for paraplegics. Stopped themselves just in time...

Slight twist on a comment above - Anything by Robert Zimmerframe;-)

On a serious note one of the best songs about getting old is 'Growing old with Naome' by Ralph McTell. Another good one to find, dunno who it is by, is 'Bonny belle of Broughton'.

Cheers

DtG

Subject: RE: Songs NOT to sing in nursing homes!
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 21 Jan 03 - 09:00 PM

True story: I once phoned a Life Insurance company regarding cause of death: while they investigated my enquiry and put the phone on"hold", the unmistakable strains of Queen's "Another One Bites the Dust"!!
TB

Subject: RE: Songs NOT to sing in nursing homes!
From: GUEST
Date: 01 Oct 06 - 09:40 PM

It's Later Than You Think!

Subject: RE: Songs NOT to sing in nursing homes!
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 02 Oct 06 - 04:16 AM

there is this line in one version of Knees Up Mother Brown, which contains the line, "I'll saw your legs right orf!"

Not one for the amputee ward.......I have found!

Also in George Formby there are things in Cleaning Windows about spying on old ladies undressing..." more like 80 than eighteen.and theres another verse bout an old maid.......

Okay til you get an audience full of octogenearians. the two verses together....hm. I think not. One at least has to go.

Subject: RE: Songs NOT to sing in nursing homes!
From: pavane
Date: 02 Oct 06 - 06:57 AM

Mrs Pavane avoids "Killing me softly"

Subject: RE: Songs NOT to sing in nursing homes!
From: Mooh
Date: 02 Oct 06 - 07:20 AM

Predecease me, let me go...

Peace, Mooh.

Subject: RE: Songs NOT to sing in nursing homes!
From: Mooh
Date: 02 Oct 06 - 07:22 AM

Who was that anyway, Engelbert Humperdinck?

Peace, Mooh.

Subject: RE: Songs NOT to sing in nursing homes!
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Oct 06 - 07:28 AM

An entertainer using a karaoke machine recently visited the nursing home where I work and sang the pop song "Sexbomb". What a choice!

Subject: RE: Songs NOT to sing in nursing homes!
From: Splott Man
Date: 02 Oct 06 - 07:37 AM

I used to do a lot of geriatric wards and old peopples homes. One of my staples used to be I Gotta Woman With One Leg (by Wizz Jones & Alan Tunbridge I believe). I'd just got to the very funny verse about a glass eye, when in walked the warden, and guess what? she had one.

I didn't get a return booking.

Subject: RE: Songs NOT to sing in nursing homes!
From: GUEST,ibo
Date: 02 Oct 06 - 08:27 AM

If tomorrow never comes    I remember you      litle boxes

Subject: RE: Songs NOT to sing in nursing homes!
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 02 Oct 06 - 09:19 AM

I've recently done two short concerts, one for Age Concern, and one for a local hospice.

Most enjoyed songs?

"Hypochondria" and "I'm Awfully Well for the Shape That I'm In".

They laughed and laughed.

Don T.

Subject: RE: Songs NOT to sing in nursing homes!
From: Genie
Date: 02 Oct 06 - 11:15 AM

One that actually would probably go over very well in many assisted living and independent retirement residences - but that I wouldn't do in a "Memory care" facility - is the parody of Tom Paxton's "Last Thing On My Mind" written as a tribute to him for his 60th birthday: I Can't Recall What Was The Last Thing On My Mind.

I'm not sure I'd do "If I Only Had A Brain," though. ;-D

Subject: RE: Songs NOT to sing in nursing homes!
From: Cruiser
Date: 02 Oct 06 - 11:32 AM

Knockin' On Heaven's Door (at least better than the alternative)

The Devil Went Down to Georgia

Tomorrow Never Comes Slim Whitman

Beyond on Sunset Hank Williams (actually a beautiful song to sing)

I Just Told Mama Goodbye Hank Williams

Long Black Limousine

Little Rosewood Casket

Streets of Laredo (Dyin' Cowboy)

Subject: RE: Songs NOT to sing in nursing homes!
From: Scoville
Date: 02 Oct 06 - 11:37 AM

We actually got a REQUEST at a nursing home for "Streets of Laredo". The guy said he was celebrating that he'd lived long enough to avoid dying young.



Swing Low, Sweet Chariot

The old woman's lament (life is a toil and life is a trouble/beauty will fade and riches will flee...)

Subject: RE: Songs NOT to sing in nursing homes!
From: SINSULL
Date: 02 Oct 06 - 11:38 AM

I was waiting my turn in the doctor's office when in "walked" an elderly man with one leg. He was accomapnied by a very concerned son and daughter-in-law.

I have learned to recognize mischief in a man's eyes so I started chatting with him. Poor circulation and diabetes had claimed his leg. He was very frustrated at relying on other people to get around.

"On the other hand" I said "now you can be a pirate." His family looked at me as if I was insane as I crooned "You can't be a pirate with all of your parts." As expected, the "invalid' cracked up laughing.

Might not work in every venue but...

Subject: RE: Songs NOT to sing in nursing homes!
From: Cruiser
Date: 02 Oct 06 - 11:48 AM

I Just Don't Like This Kind of Livin'   Ole Hank

I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive! Hank

Slip Slidin' Away   Paul Simon

Slippin' Into Darkness

Subject: RE: Songs NOT to sing in nursing homes!
From: fat B****rd
Date: 02 Oct 06 - 12:32 PM

Warren Zevon has the line "Granpa's pissed his pants again" and The Crash Test Dummies "Someday I'll have a disappearing hairline, someday I'll wear pyjamas in the daytime"

Subject: RE: Songs NOT to sing in nursing homes!
From: Cruiser
Date: 02 Oct 06 - 12:40 PM

What Time Do You Have to Be Back to Heaven Razzy Bailey

You've Got that Leavin' Look in Your Eyes

Must You Throw Dirt In My Face Charlie Louvin

Subject: RE: Songs NOT to sing in nursing homes!
From: Genie
Date: 02 Oct 06 - 12:43 PM

I don't think I'd do "Old Maid In A Garret."

Not sure about "I Wish They'd Do It Now." Some of the old guys I'm sure would relate, but ...

Subject: RE: Songs NOT to sing in nursing homes!
From: Cruiser
Date: 02 Oct 06 - 12:48 PM

Waitin' On Ice

Where are We Goin' From Here?

When the Fire Gets Hot

Your Daddy Don't Live in Heaven

Subject: RE: Songs NOT to sing in nursing homes!
From: Cruiser
Date: 02 Oct 06 - 01:14 PM

Life Git's Tee-Jus, Don't It?____Walter Brennan or Carson Robinson

Also "I'm My Own Grandpa" (Lonzo & Oscar) might get a little confusing to them elders 'cause it does for me…ugh, you don't think…nah, they ain't NEVER gonna put ME in one of those places!

Subject: RE: Songs NOT to sing in nursing homes!
From: Crane Driver
Date: 02 Oct 06 - 06:03 PM

At a folk festival many years ago, a concert was being recorded for the local hospital radio. Vin Garbutt was singing 'The Chemical Workers' Song'. He got to the chorus line "Every day you're in this place, you're two days nearer death. . ." and suddenly realised what he was singing. He kept going, but you should have seen the look on his face.

Andrew

Subject: RE: Songs NOT to sing in nursing homes!
From: Fliss
Date: 02 Oct 06 - 06:26 PM

If you think that someone at 70 might be in a residential home. That makes them 20 in 1956 at the height of Rock n Roll. Perhaps we shouldnt be singing White Cliffs of DOver with them, but Elvis numbers.

I do hope they have reinvented homes or abolished them by the time Im a geriatric hippie. We should all have instruments and have a all day session in some sort of senior commune. I wonder if we will all be still contributing to Mudcat.

fliss
ageing hippie

Subject: RE: Songs NOT to sing in nursing homes!
From: Geordie-Peorgie
Date: 02 Oct 06 - 06:34 PM

A couple of year ago aah did a charity gig for The Southampton Parkinson's Society and the buggaz asked for (honest).......

Shakin' All Over
All Shook Up
Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On

And when aah wez playin' stuff like Jim Reeves & Don Williams one little owld wumman says tiv uz "De ye not knaah any Dire Straits?"

So aah sang So Far Away and Waalk Of Life and the buggaz joined in.

Aah did the gig aboot fower or five times before they decided that 'disco' wez better twice a year than live music

But Great funsters aall of 'em

Subject: RE: Songs NOT to sing in nursing homes!
From: Cruiser
Date: 02 Oct 06 - 09:56 PM

I Don't Remember Loving You___John Conlee

What's Your Name (Is it Mary or Sue..)___Don and Juan

Your Memory Ain't What It Used to Be___Mickey Gilley

What's Your Mama's Name___Tanya Tucker

Stone-Deaf, Dumb and Blind___Charlie Louvin

Subject: RE: Songs NOT to sing in nursing homes!
From: InOBU
Date: 03 Oct 06 - 12:14 AM

True Story:
I am singing Irish ballads in an old folks home in New Jersey, lot of Irish folks there... as I am finishing up, an old dear askes me to sing "God Bless America." (I'm not big on patriotic songs... per se... ) SO I explain, and it is true, that as a Quaker I don't swear oaths, or make outward religious showing, that we Friends would not, in our faith use the expression God Bless... anything ( we don't say God Bless you when someone sneezes... ) So the old dear says... "Well you better LEARN to sing it!
Hmmm
lor

Subject: RE: Songs NOT to sing in nursing homes!
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 03 Oct 06 - 03:55 AM

Do you realise that songs from *MY* youth (that is, songs from when I was younger, not the toy boy I have tucked under the bed) include such gems as

The Wombling Song - Mike Batt & the Wombles
God save the Queen (and the facist regime) - Sex Pistols
Sing if you're glad to be gay - Tom Robinson
Grandma, we love you - St Winifred's School choir
and The Floral Dance - Brighouse and Rastrick Brass Band with Terry Wogan.

Anyone comes to my nursing home and sings those for me, I'm going to smack 'em with my zimmer frame!

LTS

Subject: RE: Songs NOT to sing in nursing homes!
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 03 Oct 06 - 04:08 AM

Van Morrisons 'Precious time, slipping away'....

LTS

Subject: RE: Songs NOT to sing in nursing homes!
From: Mrs.Duck
Date: 03 Oct 06 - 05:18 AM

Oh ye canna push yer granny off a bus
Only just come to this thread. Makes a nice change to be described as a bit of a goer eh, Liz!!!!!1

Subject: RE: Songs NOT to sing in nursing homes!
From: Scrump
Date: 03 Oct 06 - 05:37 AM

What about the one Billy Connolly sang at the Secret Policeman's Ball?
Words here

Subject: RE: Songs NOT to sing in nursing homes!
From: DaveP
Date: 03 Oct 06 - 02:35 PM

What about ---

May the Circle be Unbroken

Subject: RE: Songs NOT to sing in nursing homes!
From: Genie
Date: 07 Oct 06 - 01:06 AM

How about "Goin' Out Of My Head (Over You)?"   

(Maybe that's one to avoid on the psych units.

Subject: RE: Songs NOT to sing in nursing homes!
From: GUEST,Ingrid Frances Stark
Date: 07 Oct 06 - 02:31 AM

I'm surprised no one has mentioned the Beatles song with the line: Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I'm 64?
Then there's a song I think was called The Very Unfortunate Man, where his bride takes off all her clothes and then various body parts...

Ingrid

Subject: RE: Songs NOT to sing in nursing homes!
From: GUEST,Scoville
Date: 07 Oct 06 - 10:27 AM

I was thinking of the parody of "After the Ball" where Mary takes off her wig, false, leg, glass eye, dentures, etc., until "there was nothing left of Mary, after the ball".

Subject: RE: Songs NOT to sing in nursing homes!
From: Lady Nancy
Date: 07 Oct 06 - 11:16 AM

A good friend of mine with a somewhat warped sense of humour wrote a wonderful song called "Botox Towers" in which he gets his own back at the nursing home now, whilst he is still able.......... I'll pressure him to let me add the lyrics and tune, cos that was self-penned too. It always goes down well.........

LN

Subject: RE: Songs NOT to sing in nursing homes!
From: Rasener
Date: 07 Oct 06 - 05:11 PM

Don't ask the residents to take their false teeth out and use them for percussion whilst you sing "Smile"

Subject: RE: Songs NOT to sing in nursing homes!
From: pattyClink
Date: 07 Oct 06 - 08:15 PM

We were in the middle of singing Mood Indigo in a hospice, having never really listened hard to the words before, "I'm so lonesome I could die" and "cause there's nobody that cares about me, I'm just a soul in misery", felt like an idiot singing that to someone in great pain who needs more visitors. Cross it off the list!

Subject: RE: Songs NOT to sing in nursing homes!
From: Genie
Date: 07 Oct 06 - 10:07 PM

Ingrid, I do sing "When I'm 64" at retirement and nursing homes.   I point out that Paul was a teenager when he wrote it, so 64 must have seemed really old to him then.   And then at the end, I repeat the last line several times, increasing the age till it ends with "...When I'm 104." :)

A song I definitely don't sing at oldsters' residences (at least without rewriting the line in question) is "There'll Be Some Changes Made Today," which includes the line "Nobody wants you when you're old and gray."

Of course, as I said, this thread was intended to be silly and focus on things like songs whose titles take on a new meaning in the context of the (frail) elderly -- songs like "Urge For Goin'."   But, yeah, there are some songs that seriously ought probably to be avoided in those same settings.

Subject: RE: Songs NOT to sing in nursing homes!
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 08 Oct 06 - 12:37 AM

Whoop-Dee-Dee - Whoop-Dee-Doo

I smell a diaper and its all full of pooh

Whoop-Dee-Doo - Whoop-Doo-Dee

I smell a diaper and its all full of pee.

Hand me down my walkin cane, point me to the next latrine

Whoop A Doodle DooDee Doo.

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

Subject: RE: Songs NOT to sing in nursing homes!
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 08 Oct 06 - 09:05 PM

Well, that certainly makes it in the "silly stakes", garg...

Subject: RE: Songs NOT to sing in nursing homes!
From: Soldier boy
Date: 08 Oct 06 - 09:44 PM

What about :

Will ye go lassie go
Maids when you're young
Look at the coffin
Rolling home (for wheel-chair escapees!)
Willie McBride
Mothers Lament (By Elsie Houghton - narrated by John Cocking ("Uppards" CD))
Grandma (By Kevin Collier - narrated by John Cocking ("Uppards" CD) )
The Recumbent Posture (By Marriot Edgar and Stanley Holloway -narrated by John Cocking - "Uppards" CD)

Subject: RE: Songs NOT to sing in nursing homes!
From: Soldier boy
Date: 08 Oct 06 - 09:58 PM

Also :

The woman sat by the old church door....
( A song I first heard when I was a Scout!)

Subject: RE: Songs NOT to sing in nursing homes!
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Oct 06 - 10:02 PM

Don't let that nasty Gargoyle spoil a perfectly fine thread.

I know GANG!!! Let's take his lyrics an make them one better.

Whoop Tee-Gee, Whoop Wee-Wee

Your teeth are green... just like stale brocholi

Whoop Tee-Wee, Whoop Tee-Wit

Your breath smells just like a bucket of sh-t!

Call the ambulance again - I am havinh an attack again.

Whoop a Tilly, What silly, Whoop the tilly-dilly-DooWhap A DooWhap.

Subject: RE: Songs NOT to sing in nursing homes!
From: Soldier boy
Date: 09 Oct 06 - 10:10 AM

Also :

Growing old with Naomi - Ralph McTell
Ain't no grave can hold my body down/Ain't no grave gonna hold my body down - (See thread with same title here on mudcat)

Subject: RE: Songs NOT to sing in nursing homes!
From: GUEST
Date: 09 Oct 06 - 11:51 PM

Good idea Mr. Guest

no one wants a gargoyle making fun of old, fat, crippled, non-gardening, fat folks from Colorado. So, here is MY verse:

Whoop T Chance, Whoopt T France.

I've got a party here in my pants.

Whoop T Dee, Whoop T Dumb

Sit on my lap... You ain't feeling my thumb.

Whoop T Deedle, Dee, Dum, Bun.

Subject: RE: Songs NOT to sing in nursing homes!
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 09 Oct 06 - 11:54 PM

SCORE - 100 poster!!!!

Ring Up 100,000 requent flier miles.

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

should one take payment in United, Delta, or Camsco records...one is in default....the other two tetter-tottering.