LOL, Dirty Ol' Git!

A few songs that pertain to aging or death but which I find are often requested by residents of assisted living, retirement, and nursing homes, are:

¥ The Memory Song (See thread in the forum. I've introduced this to quite a few seniors -- especially the ones in their 70s and 80s who are beginning to notice their memory is not what it used to be--, and they love it and request it thereafter.) ¥ September Song (very popular with seniors)
¥ Believe Me, If All Those Endearing Young Charms
¥ I'll Take You Home Again, Kathleen
¥ Get Up And Go (same groups that like "The Memory Song")
¥ Kisses Sweeter Than Wine
¥ When You And I Were Young, Maggie
¥ On Top Of Old Smokey (The reference to "the grave will decay you..." doesn't bother the many folks who like the song.)
¥ I'll Fly Away

Rita, I think it's great to have a song or two from "the old country" to do for folks who came here from another culture. If you do instrumentals, that's a great help, since you can playt the melodies and don't have to learn to sing in Chinese or whatever. Singing a few is also nice, but generally, I think folks would rather hear someone from another country sing a song well in English than hear them butcher the pronunciation on a dozen songs in their native language.
Foreign languages are a special area of interest to me. I have a pretty good ear for singing in a lot of languages if I can both see and hear the words. But I seldom try to sing in another language I don't know just from seeing words printed with a "pronunciation guide."
Also, if, say, half the group has something like Chinese or Yiddish as their first language and the other half does not know that language, you can lose a lot of the latter audience members if you do too many in the "old tongue."
But do talk to the AD about it.

Genie