Song for retirement party?

Subject: Song for retirement party?
From: Pinetop Slim
Date: 29 Dec 03 - 11:03 AM

A good fella is retiring from our company after 35 years. Can any catters recommend a song that would be appropriate for his retirement party and could be learned quickly by a "choir" of untrained singers?

Subject: RE: Song for retirement party?
From: open mike
Date: 29 Dec 03 - 11:40 AM

dylan's forever young?

Subject: RE: Song for retirement party?
From: open mike
Date: 29 Dec 03 - 11:40 AM

for he's a jolly good fellow....nobody can deny....

Subject: RE: Song for retirement party?
From: Amos
Date: 29 Dec 03 - 11:41 AM

Bessie Smith's "You Been A Good Ole Wagon, Daddy, But You Done Broke Down".

A

Subject: RE: Song for retirement party?
From: ddw
Date: 29 Dec 03 - 11:42 AM

If he feels about his work like I did mine by the time I left, Take This Job and Shove It would definitely be appropriate...

cheers,

david

Subject: RE: Song for retirement party?
From: artbrooks
Date: 29 Dec 03 - 11:44 AM

So Long, It's Been Good to Know Ya, and its easy to massage the lyrics to fit the situation.

Subject: RE: Song for retirement party?
From: stagehawk
Date: 29 Dec 03 - 12:05 PM

Old and in the way??????

Subject: RE: Song for retirement party?
From: breezy
Date: 29 Dec 03 - 12:15 PM

Stan Roger's 'Last watch on the Midland' ???

at 64 you're still the best,
one more year and then you're less
than dust upon the floor.

Subject: RE: Song for retirement party?
From: Gareth
Date: 29 Dec 03 - 12:27 PM

"I thought I heard the Old Man say,
Leave her Johnny leave her..."!

Gareth

Subject: RE: Song for retirement party?
From: GUEST,Les B.
Date: 29 Dec 03 - 01:11 PM

"Goin'Down the Road Feelin'Bad" ??

Subject: RE: Song for retirement party?
From: Little Robyn
Date: 29 Dec 03 - 01:36 PM

My husband was going to sing Gordon Dryden's 'Factory Lad' when he was made redundant, but when the time came, he couldn't do it.
'So when my time comes, as come it must,
I'll leave this place,
I'll walk right out past the charge-hand's desk
and I'll never turn me face.
Out through the gate into the sun
and I'll leave it all behind
With one regret for the lads I've left
to carry on the grind.
ch.
Turning steel how do you feel.............'

Robyn

Subject: RE: Song for retirement party?
From: Leadfingers
Date: 29 Dec 03 - 01:44 PM

Not so sure about being learnt by a "choir" but Keith Marsdens song
'Prospect Providence' is a guy retiring from work in a woolen mill,
or Utah Phillips 'All Used Up' might fill the bill as well.

Subject: RE: Song for retirement party?
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 29 Dec 03 - 02:41 PM

This one (although I usually use it as a birthday song) would work, I think. It's to the tune of Silver Threads Among the Gold.

[Darling/fella/Charlie/Charlene], you are growing ooo-old
Rocks don't get as old as you!
You're not quite as old as God is,
But you're older than primordial stew!

Yes, my [Darling/fella/Charlie/Charlene], you will be, will be...
Older than the rocks and trees
Yes, my [Darling/fella/Charlie/Charlene], you will beeee-eeee
Older than the rocks and trees!

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: Song for retirement party?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 29 Dec 03 - 03:33 PM

Hi, Slim - I think the perfect retirement song is My Get Up and Go Has Got Up and Went. I find, though, that now that I'm retired, I have plenty of get-up-and-go.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Song for retirement party?
From: Emma B
Date: 29 Dec 03 - 06:40 PM

When I quit Social Work, a few years ago, I sang the first and last verse of the Parting Glass at my leaving 'do'. A "good fellow" might find the middle verse appropiate too!

Subject: RE: Song for retirement party?
From: GUEST
Date: 31 Dec 03 - 09:45 AM

Thanks all. -- Slim

Subject: RE: Song for retirement party?
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 31 Dec 03 - 10:00 AM

Go Now
John

Subject: RE: Song for retirement party?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 31 Dec 03 - 10:14 AM

"Turnin' steel, how do you feel,
as in the chuck you spin?
If you felt like me, you'd roll right out,
and never roll back in!"

Great harmonies possible!

Subject: RE: Song for retirement party?
From: GUEST,Puffenkinty
Date: 31 Dec 03 - 10:26 AM

"Quitting Time" by the Roche sisters

Subject: RE: Song for retirement party?
From: GUEST,Nancy King at work
Date: 31 Dec 03 - 12:35 PM

"Too old to work and too young to die"

Subject: RE: Song for retirement party?
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 01 Jan 04 - 06:30 AM

Freewheeling Now by Jim Reid, but it's really about reaching 50th birthday, but you could modify the words of the first verse to suit the occasion.

Subject: RE: Song for retirement party?
From: GUEST,MickyMan
Date: 01 Jan 04 - 11:17 AM

Lou and Peter Berriman have a great new humorous song called "Older Than Everybody" that is very cute and really much more possitive than it sounds. Another that comes to mind is "The Dancing Boilerman" (Writer Charlie King... he was from CT, USA about 25 years ago). It's especially approprate for a dancer as it is about a factory worker who enjoys retirement because he and his wife take up "dancin' at the YMCA". That's square dancing...and it's laced with dance calls that could probably be changed to any style.
Some of the earler entries are downright depressing. I don't know about everybody elase, but I'm looking forward to those years!

Subject: RE: Song for retirement party?
From: GUEST,JTT
Date: 01 Jan 04 - 11:22 AM

Maybe it'd be a good idea to find songs that are about new beginnings. Mind you, my mind's a blank right now; only one I can think of is The Manchester Rambler -

"I may be a wage slave on Monday
But I am a free man come Sunday"!

Subject: RE: Song for retirement party?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 01 Jan 04 - 11:23 AM

Why not Born to be Wild?

Subject: RE: Song for retirement party?
From: GUEST,danni
Date: 08 Jun 08 - 09:55 AM

A Million Miles Away by David Byrne off his Uh-Oh CD.

Subject: RE: Song for retirement party?
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 08 Jun 08 - 10:05 AM

Gold Watch Blues by Donovan.

Cho.

Here's your gold watch, and the shackles to your chain
And the piece of paper, to say you left here sane
And if you've a son, that wants a good career.
Just get him to sign on the dotted line, and work for 50 years.



G

Subject: RE: Song for retirement party?
From: john f weldon
Date: 08 Jun 08 - 10:08 AM

I see not everyone's into positive thinking here. Ah well, here's the worst song for a retirement party:

Sarah Silverman

Subject: RE: Song for retirement party?
From: Darowyn
Date: 08 Jun 08 - 11:46 AM

On Melanie's most recent CD, there is a song which I shall need to be restrained from singing at my retirement party.
"I Tried to Die Young"
I might just do a line from Woodstock:-
"We are Stardust, we are golden,
And we've got to get ourselves back to the gardening"
Cheers
Dave

Subject: RE: Song for retirement party?
From: topical tom
Date: 08 Jun 08 - 12:11 PM

If appropriate, "I Did It My Way".
   "The Parting Glass".
   "The Honor of Your Company".

Subject: RE: Song for retirement party?
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 08 Jun 08 - 01:33 PM

Take this job and shove it!

Subject: RE: Song for retirement party?
From: peregrina
Date: 08 Jun 08 - 01:47 PM

This Day is Mine--Winter Wilson

Ah cud hew--Ed Pickford

Subject: RE: Song for retirement party?
From: Effsee
Date: 08 Jun 08 - 02:32 PM

"Don't call me early in the morning!?

Subject: RE: Song for retirement party?
From: kendall
Date: 08 Jun 08 - 02:38 PM

Onnie by Johnnie Cash

Subject: RE: Song for retirement party?
From: Marc Bernier
Date: 08 Jun 08 - 03:35 PM

All Used Up by Utah Phillips

Subject: RE: Song for retirement party?
From: cetmst
Date: 09 Jun 08 - 06:32 AM

I Have Been a Good Boy, Carl Sandburg version

Subject: RE: Song for retirement party?
From: quokka
Date: 09 Jun 08 - 07:04 AM

'Those Were the Days My Friend'
I thought they'd never end
We'd sing and dance forever and a day...

Sory don't remember any more of the words
Cheers
Quokka

Subject: RE: Song for retirement party?
From: GUEST,MC Fat (at work)
Date: 09 Jun 08 - 07:43 AM

My mate Smiley Dave sings a song 'he's old and grey and only in the way'

Subject: RE: Song for retirement party?
From: GUEST,MC Fat (at work)
Date: 09 Jun 08 - 07:47 AM

and here it is
Old And Only In The Way From Charlie Poole


When you walk along the street, how often times you'll meet
Some poor old man who's getting old and gray
With age is back is bent, in his pockets not a cent
And for shelter he has no place to stay

His relations by the score, they'll turn him from the door
They'll see him on the street and pass him by
If you ask them why they do, they'll turn and say to you
"He is poor, he's gray, he's only in the way."

cho:

Now let us cheer them on, for they won't be with us long
Don't quarrel with them because they're old and gray
Just remember while you're young that to you old age will come
When you'll be old and gray, and only in the way.

There was a time, I hear, when youth was not so queer
But since that time there's been an awful change
Young men with strength and might to their parents they bring strife
If it happens every day that's nothing strange

In shackles they did toil, their children they did spoil
As sure for death ofttimes they do pray
He and his faithful wife were toiling all their life
To find they're old and only in the way

Now my message, I am sure, is for rich as well as poor
Take a rich man when he's growing old
His relations 'round him stand, and take him by the hand
They all want him to die, they want his gold

Through life he did enjoy all the things that gold can buy
But all his gold, his life it could not save
After all he's like the poor when his journey's nearly o'er
He finds he's old and only in the way