Missing from the list is one of my all-time favorites,
``Does Your Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavor On the Bedpost Overnight,'' but
I think that one's British.
The list I speak of was compiled by the Music Educators
National Conference, whose spokesperson and president, Will Schmid, claims
a whole generation has grown up without singing these songs and has thus
missed an important part of our American culture.
Schmid and his 95,000-member organization have launched
a campaign across the nation to ``Get America Singing . . . Again.''
I commend Schmid and the music educators.
I think it's a great campaign.
However, publishing a recommended
list seems shortsighted though gutsy. It's bound to raise hackles and annoy
the politically correct, but, hey, every day I have to put up with what's
touted as ``Japan's Best Music'' on a local radio station that sounds more
to me like ``Japan's Pest Music'' (and it's American music, to boot!).
You can get a feel for how this list will divide the country
by reading the wire story that announced it.
Former Secretary of Education Bill Bennett, now known as
the nation's ``virtue guru'' by virtue of his compiling writings on virtue
in America and who admits to being a rock 'n' roll fan, declined comment
on the content of the list, but said he thought it was a good idea because
we have too much noisy, in-your-face behavior in America and singing might
be the antidote.
At the other end of the lyrical spectrum, Jim DeRogatis,
the editor of Rolling Stone magazine, criticized the educators for being
out of touch with kids today and with the energy that will get young people
singing.
DeRogatis suggested the list be augmented with contemporary
numbers such as ``Fight the Power'' by the rap group Public Enemy and ``Smells
Like Teen Spirit'' by the group Nirvana.
Probably sitting somewhere between
Bennett and DeRogatis, I find the music educators' list biased toward songs
of patriotism and against songs of the sea. It includes several distinctly
Christian songs and one distinctly Jewish song, but contains no songs representing
other world religions, although there might be one or two judged ``New Age''
or ecumenical.
It also appears that Schmid, Bennett and DeRogatis all
have been out of touch with Barney, the lavender dinosaur, whose series
of video tapes includes a majority of the songs on the music educators'
list. My guess is that most Americans under 7 years of age know most of
these, although Barney has an annoying way of altering the original lyrics.
Of course, Barney's not alone. A Washington, D.C., elementary
school music teacher whose students, according to the Associated Press,
didn't recognize the French-Canadian song, ``Frere Jacques,'' reminded the
kids that they knew the song as ``Are You Sleeping.''
Noticeably absent from the educators' list, many younger
people will note, are songs made famous by Bruce Springsteen, Madonna, Bob
Dylan, Diana Ross, The Drifters, Cheryl Crow, The Rolling Stones, and Hootie
and the Blowfish.
This shouldn't anger the youth of
America, however; also missing are any chestnuts by Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra,
Tony Bennett, Rosemary Clooney, and Patti Paige, unless you count ``Danny
Boy,'' which everybody but Hootie seems to have recorded at one time or
another.
Two of the most recorded songs in the history of music
in America, ``White Christmas'' and ``Rudolf, the Red-Nosed Reindeer,''
are not on the list. In fact, there are no Christmas carols on the list.
There are no songs of Elvis Presley or of Michael Jackson.
I read somewhere that Ken Burns incorporated over 200 versions
of ``Take Me Out To the Ballgame'' in his PBS documentary on baseball. There's
a part of American culture and heritage that the music educators missed.
The list also seems to have consciously avoided war songs.
``When Johnny Comes Marching Home, Again'' isn't on the list; neither is
``The White Cliffs of Dover'' or the Simon and Garfunkel song that became
the anthem of the Vietnam War veteran, ``Homeward Bound.''
Of the 42, there are 38 from which
I could sing at least one musical phrase. There are probably a dozen I could
sing in their entirety, and there are at least four that completely baffle
me.
My major gripe with the music educators' list is it's woefully
short. If Americans are to preserve their culture and heritage in song,
the list needs to grow to about 4,042.
How many songs can an American remember? Lots more than
we think we can.
I never drink a milkshake or hear the word jukebox without singing a few
bars of ``The Aisle,'' by the Five Satins.
In college, I ran a student council campaign that used
a Civil War tune as its theme, and in the course of campaigning I learned
the words to ``The Battle Cry of Freedom.'' Mention student politics and
I break into, ``We will rally 'round the flag, boys, rally once again.''
Somebody once accused me of having
a song for everything because I have a habit of breaking into song when
someone uses a phrase I recognize. Many times, for example, I've done my
Buddy Holly imitation when someone says to me, ``That'll Be The Day.''
One of the most powerful books to come out of the Vietnam
War is Michael Herr's Dispatches . I've always been struck by Herr's
recognition that popular music was integral to the Vietnam experience. Dispatches
chronicles a war and a generation of rock 'n' roll music.
What would the Disney classics be without the classic songs
that have earmarked every one of them?
I have a difficult time thinking about any era of American
history without thinking about America's music: Stephen Foster, George M.
Cohan, John Phillips Sousa, George Gershwin. If I thought long and hard
enough about it, I could probably come up with 42 composers whose music
every American should know.
Even if we picked one song for every
year of American history that we all should know, we'd have a list between
200 and 500 songs -- depending on where you begin -- and that wouldn't begin
to scratch the surface of our heritage.
I suggest the music educators not only encourage Americans
to sing, but that they expand their list by letting Americans add to it
the songs they want to remember as part of their cultural experience and
heritage.
Such a list might educate the educators.
Allan R. Andrews can be contacted at allan.andrews@reporters.net