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Camp Songs of the 70’s

Submitted by atatman on October 11, 2007 - 8:46am.
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Camp Songs of the 70’sLaughing

Chris Sawyer started me thinking about camp songs. We sang many but generally based on what staffers Nancy Bram, Cathy Herrmann, Bart Tuthill or Bert could play. Some were homegrown, classic or religious or contemporary. Many went on to be Chanco standards.

How many can you recall? Here’s my list of favorites. Add to it!

  • White Rabbit
  • Eve of Destruction
  • Junior Birdman
  • Suffocation
  • Pruney
  • Mountain Dew
  • The Rainbow Song
  • Amen
  • Rise and Shine
  • I Wish I Was a Little Bar of Soap
  • Stuck in Revelations
  • Here we sit like Birds in the Wilderness
  • Kum Ba Yah
  • I’m Thinking
  • Children of the Lord
  • The Ants go Walking.
  • Day is Done

Godspell Songs

Submitted by Garland Wood on October 14, 2007 - 10:17am.

Don't forget all the great Godspell music like

Day by Day

All for the Best

and the final song of each session, sung by the staff to the campers:

"Tho' we gotta say goodbye, for the summer,

Darling, we promise you this,

We'll send you all our love, every day, in a letter...

Sealed with a FIST!"

Kind of a mixed messeage we were sending...but it was funny!

Nancy's my cousin. A

Submitted by Doug on October 12, 2007 - 2:53pm.

Nancy's my cousin. A wonderful person, and very very talented. Music and Art. Beautiful voice. She has always epitimized that wonderful feeling of 60s culture for me. The peace vibe. Judy Collins, Joni Mitchell, Carol King, Joan Baez.

Always admired Cathy Hermann. Looked up to her a great deal and thought she had tremendous depth and inner goodness. I hope she is doing well these days. Miss the great talks we had when I was a camper and she was a counsellor, etc. My sister Lori and I grew close to her so many years ago, but the connection was lost.

 

Such a long time ago. But, the proverbial "seems like yesterday" holds true for me.

 

. . . .

 

Excellent list of songs. Many of those were new to me, gained solely through Chanco. I was also introduced to the music of Cat Stevens, which has stuck. Still one of my favorites from that era.

 

Morning has Broken

It's a Wild World

Father and Son

 

I miss those days!

 

:>)

 

Lori

Submitted by Lori on October 12, 2007 - 10:01pm.

Chanco is......

Hey, Brother!

I missed Cat Stevens in my bio, and need to add that one... Tea for the Tillerman... That album played all of the time..

No matter what else was going on, when our cousin, Nancy Gail, and Cathy Herrman and Doug Tuthill would play guitars and sing, "all was right with the World..."

We have to get to the 2008 Fall Fest!

Love you

Lori

Sis, where have those notes

Submitted by Doug on October 13, 2007 - 2:18am.

Sis, where have those notes of peace gone? They rose with our hopes into so many purple nights above the campfires.

So many? Well, not really. Our sessions at Chanco were short. Too short. And my time as a cousellor was cut short. But they filled us powerfully, or why would we harken back to them so often?

How many times can you say I miss those days?

The river, the woods, the discovery of Dr. Pepper. Sailing. My hat, lost in the river. Returned to me like a favor. I couldn't go anywhere without that hat.

And we had Nancy to light our way, and Cathy, and Diane, and Kevin, Annie, Larry, Jef, Winnie, and so many others followed--again, a little older, a little wiser. So many "personalities", compacted into relatively small space and short times.

Terry Elliot and his sister April. April I carried around the cafeteria to shouts and kind laughter. With her navy hat and smile. Bill and Phil and Laurie helped make weekends off special.  

Music everywhere. Nothing forced. Nothing artificial. Nothing strained. We grow older and we get more cynical. But there was nothing, really, to induce cynicism when the music lifted all of us like a dream of quiet justice . . .

The only "downer" I remember was feeling a sense that we had come into the fires a little bit too late, after the storms, after the upheavels, after the shock of the new, of Jimi and Janis and the Lizard King. Wish old Roy and Merrill and our crazy gang back home could have known the joys of Chanco. They would have added so much. I think the level of "practical jokes" would have escalated tenfold with them down by the James.

The world needs to be washed again in the music of the 60s and the early 70s. It needs Cat Stevens, Joni, Judy, Dylan, Baez, Pete Seeger and all the rest. It needs that music in the sunshine, by the river, in the river, around the mother of all campfires.

 

 

And the #1 song...

Submitted by Susan Cheyne on October 11, 2007 - 9:49pm.

I can't believe THE theme song of the early 70's Sr. High camps wasn't mentioned (did you forget, Bart?)...LAYLA!!  It was even incorporated into the ever-popular camp song Ging-gang-gooly-gooly-gooly-gooly-washgang!  On the more spiritual side (moreso than Layla?!) was a song based on e.e.cummings' poem "I Thank You God".  I also remember when sister Julie and  ?? sang "Your Song" to Neale for his (18th?) birthday.  How about "Morning Has Broken"?

Ging gang

Submitted by Lori on October 12, 2007 - 9:59pm.

Chanco is......

 

I remember singing that song like it was yesterday...

and I remember being awakened by "Rise and Shine, and Give GOd your Glory Glory...." I used that one on my own kids!!! It worked for them, too!