I can't go back to elementary school because we weren't allowed to listen to the radio until we were teenagers.  Many of these songs I learned from hanging out with friends.

Del Shannon - "Hats Off to Larry"

Ricky Nelson - "Poor Little Fool" - anything by Ricky - I was a huge fan

Elvis Presley - "Love Me Tender" and "Blue Hawaii"

Beatles - "Yesterday"

Simon & Garfunkel - "Sounds of Silence",  "Bridge Over Troubled Water"

Roy Orbison - "Only the Lonely"

The Byrds - "Turn, Turn, Turn"

I liked ABBA as well.   That's all I can remember at present.

Monster Mash -- my brother's album -- it came out in '62, but I think I heard it when we moved to Cambridge when I was allowed to play his albums, so probably about 8 years old or so...in '66

Henry the 8th was from 1965 or so,but I am thinking it was fromt he same time frame when I got to sing along with it.

i watched the monkee's from '66 to '68, i am thinking, so , from 8-10..again that silly kinda music.

The following was from about when I was 11.  I would have been in grade 7? -- moves into the soulful, broken heart , stupid stuff of the early teenager

Wedding Bell Blues - the 5th dimension - 1969.   lol, remember singing it with others at a part, as we mooned over a guy named Bill.

Karen Carpenter -- Close to you -- was in 70 -- so about 12.

I will blame this one on my mom, her listening to Tom Jones and Delilah. I loved that song and sang it into a hairbrush. I was very little.

On my own, it was late 1971 and Joan Baez doing "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down". I would have been 5. It was my favourite other than Mr. Bojangles and Me and You and a Dog Named Boo,  which my dad sang to me. This was the same time frame in which he died, so the songs had special meaning.  

Hmmm. I wasn't much into popular music until probably high school. The first pop song that I remember really liking was called "Forever Autumn" by Justin Hayward of the Moody Blues. As a result of this song, I got into the Moody Blues and have been a fan of them ever since. It was on a concept album based on the novel War of the Worlds (to this day, one of my all time favorite novels) that was created and produced by English producer Jeff Wayne and also featured Phil Lynott (from Thin Lizzy), David Essex (pop and West End stage star) and Julie Covington (stage star).

EDIT: forgot the most important star. Actor Richard Burton did the narration, which was mostly adapted fairly closely from the book. As good as the music was, the narration was easily the best part of the album. Burton's recounting of the Battle of Shepperton, where the British army first gets its backside handed to it by the invading Martians, still sends chills up my spine.

In the late seventies and early eighties I got heavily into Abba. Somewhere in the same era I first go into the Beatles as well.

Mendalla

Those first groups are important in our development. I still love ABBA too. So sad Gecko you weren't allowed.

Just looked this one up. Used to bop around the living room to this at my friend's house. Yeah! Wooohh!

I always had problems with music. I have a difficult time hearing the lyrics, while listening to music. That said when I was 6 or so I became enchanted by Puff The Magic Dragon. When I heard it played on the radio or TV I was mesmerised.

It still enchants me, and moves me. I tried in vain to explain to my parents why they had to get a Peter Paul and Mary album.    

My parents also had one of those  console stereo, and a hundred or so albums.  I only like two to two and I waiting until my father was gone, so I could play for the one million time, both the score to the broadway show My Fair Lady, and the film Mary Poppins.

I completely ignore the Nat King Cole and other Jazz  Albums.

Julie ANdrews was my idea of what a perfect women was at 7.

I also had a think for language as I only started to talk around the age of 6 and 7, and saw language as the being part of the grown up world.

ANd to think no one suspected I was gay. And  Like in the play Jeffery, I too developed my first ideas of God, from the album cover of My Fair Lady. You know the guy holding Eliza's pup[et strings.

I stopped listen to music after someone hid the My Fair Lady, and Mary Poppins albums, and only started to listen to music on the radio again, when The Villiage people came out with YMCA.  Which was the first song on the raido I could understand and follow, after Puff.

Early days--about age 4 or 5, I liked John Denver, Neil Diamond, and Harry Chapin--listened to them in the car. They are my first memories of music and stand out more than any children's music.

My first popular music album of my own, age 5 or 6, was Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon...my dad somehow ended up with 2 copies and he gave me one and I put the included stickers on my Fisher Price record player. I also liked Fleetwood Mac (Stevie Nicks' era). Of course I didn't understand the lyrics, I just liked the sounds.

In about grade one and two I liked disco...Bee Gees...and ABBA, and I also loved the Grease sound track except my mom was concerned about the adult content which I didn't get at all anyway. And I also had an album called Disco Duck which was none other than Donald Duck singing disco ..wow, my mom must've loved it being played ad nauseum!

In grade 4 I had an album called  Chipmunk Punk which was Alvin and the Chipmunks covering Tom Petty- Refugee, and My Sharona by The Knack, and Blondie...to name the ones I remember.

My next memories include Air Supply, then Duran Duran, Flock of Seagulls, Culture Club and David Bowie...then it was onto my teenage years and many other bands.

for those who don't know Harry Chapin. I thought this one was absolutely hilarious and I drove my parents nuts (or should I say bananas) asking for it constantly:

just for fun...

alex, you must be similair age to me...both of those songs made me smile and go oh yeah, those were early songs for me too! (puff and supercali...)

A great walk down memory lane to the songs I enjoyed in my 20s and 30s, and the songs I listened to with my children.    "Puff the Magic Dragon",   "Me and You and a Dog Named Boo".   Does anybody remember "Bimbo", and   "The Teddy Bear's Picnic"?

I'm remembering something about "Another Brick in the Wall" and of course my kids sitting in the back seat singing the entire sound track of Grease during a trip to the camp. 

But the question was about songs I remember liking as a child.   We had a radio and in the evenings we would listen to "Western Swing".   I remember songs by Hank Snow and the Drifting Cowboys and "a big eight wheeler moving down the track, and your lovin' daddy ain't a coming back.  I'm moving on".   A friend had teenage sisters who had a record player (it played 78s  - you had to be very careful not to scratch them, and the needle had to be changed after every 2 or 3 songs).  Most of the time we weren't allowed to touch it, but when we did we went through their collection of Hank Williams (and Luke the Drifter) songs and ballots.  I took them all to heart.   When news of his death came, my friend's family practically went into mourning.

For singing, we kids sang songs like "It's a long way to Tipporary" and "White Cliffs of Dover", and "Old Mrs. Leary Put the Lantern in the Shed".  

I also liked the songs we learned in Sunday School.   One in particular I remember from the old blue Hymnery  "When Mother's of Salem, their children brought to Jesus".   It told the story of Jesus blessing the children when "The stern disciples drove them back and bade them depart, but Jesus saw them where they fled, and sweetly smiled and kindly said "suffer little children to come onto me."

I guess I liked songs that told a story.   I guess I could still call it my childhood when 'Davy Crocket' was a hit.  Then the early Johnny Cash.   I was a teenager, grade ten I think, when some people started talking about someone with a strange name of Elvis, but for me Elvis couldn't hold a candle to that deep voice singing "I Walk the Line".  

One of the earliest songs I can remember singing in the school yard at recess time with my friends was "Ba ba ba ba, Barbara Ann . . ."

The biggest individual singer was Elvis Presley and the biggest band that had just hit was The Beatles ("She loves you, ya, ya, ya " and "I wanna hold your hand . . . ").  When we first got our little 45 mono record player in my elementary/junior high years my favorite songs were "To Sir With Love" by Lulu, and "She's a Lady" by Tom Jones, "I'm A Believer" - Monkees I think), "Young Girl" - Gary Pucket and the Union Gap.

Along with the record player that was a gift we got an LP  . . . I can't remember the name of it, but can still see the colours and picture on the front.  It had songs on it like "They Call The Wind Mariah" and "I Wonder as I Wander" . . . can't remember the rest.

Speaking of Deliah, SG . . . we had an old old piano that someone in our family had passed down to us (out of tune and we couldn't afford a piano tuner).  My dad could play by ear . . . and after we had played "Deliah" a few times, he sat down at the piano and played it - we thought that was so cool.

Thanks for this trip down memory lane, Elanorgold .

When I was really young, like 8 years old, our house was full of music.

Whenever we three girls would do the dishes when we were younger we would sing the songs from my older sisters 45's. I remember 3 songs in particular were, "Poetry in Motion" by Johnny Tillotson, "Step by Step" by the Crests and of course "Leader of the Pack". Vroom Vroom!

Years later and we all had families of our own, whenever we gathered for Christmases, Easters and Thanksgivings we would forgo the dishwasher and do the dishes together and sing these songs, just for fun.

One other thought on early musical influences. Dad listened to the Metropolitan Opera broadcasts on CBC (or the public radio station from Buffalo when we started getting that via our cable provider). I often listened with him or at least listened in when I was around. I highly suspect that's why I'm into opera (probably my favorite "genre" of music after symphonies). His love of the pipe organ was similarly transmitted.

Mendalla

Mendella, what you just said, brings back so many memories. My Dad had a beautiful voice and on the (very rare) occassion he drove me to school, he'd be singing some operatic aria at the top of his lungs. Poor me would be crouched in the back seat of the car, hoping no one would notice I was with this crazy person driving. LOL!

My Dad used to say, some day you will listen to more than one kind of music and you'll thank me for it. And guess what, I do. So grateful for his influence.

Like you, the Moodies, are one of my all time favourite bands which makes sense, with their orchestrated background music.

A couple of others that I remember and really liked:

"Greenfields" by The Brothers Four

and "Island In The Sun" by Harry Belafonte

Okay, I had to check with sis to refresh my memory LOL!  With our little mono-record player for Christmas (sometime in the 60's) we got 2 LPs.  One was the Rhythm Pals that sang "They Call the Wind Mariah" and "I Wonder As I Wander" and a few more that I can't remember right now.

The second LP must have been a mixture of hits and our favorite one was "Who Wrote The Book of Love" by The Monotones.

I was beginning to think that Alex and I must have been separated at birth, then I read Pinga's post, so I guess we're triplets. "Puff" was a really special song for me. (Thanks for the vid, Alex). And God pulling Eliza Dolittle's string -- ah yes. I sang all the songs without having a clue what they were about too.

The first songs I remember -- "Teddy Bear's Picnic", "Robin in the Rain", "A Froggy Would a Wooing Go?"....(uhumm, uhumm).....

I have three older brothers who all had their own records, so I got to hear Elvis first. I knew who Elvis was before I knew who Jesus was). He also had Chuck Berry and Fats Domino.

Next brother -- Everly Brothers, old folk (Joan Baez et al), roots and blues, and jazz (Coltrane, Getz etc). This guy became a professional musician, playing bass and guitar in a folk rock band. He introduced us to Leonard Cohen (poetry and books as well as music).

Youngest brother -- Beach Boys, California car music, rock (Rolling Stones "Paint it Black"). funk and blues ( BB King, Ray Charles etc). This brother still plays a wicked blues harp.

My Dad was a real audiofile too, and he loved every genre. We had some really cool records. One that stands out was called "Wired for Sound" which sounded like early electronica, but was in fact an orchestra with "normal" instruments and some fancy tape distortions etc.

Classical was also in frequent play.

Mum liked Frank Sinatra the best, and had her own stash of records too (Julie Andrews, Michelle Lee?)

The first 45 I bought with my own money was the Beatles "From Me to You". Next one was Lovin' Spoonful "Summer In The City". I also listened to the pop songs of the time and was smitten with every Monkee in sequence.

I wore out an album called "Aretha Arrives". I used to try to be her backup singer and drove everyone nuts trying to reach those notes!

Fun thread, Elanorgold!

Does anyone remebr the album from the sixties, that had a women, sitting in whipped cream, and I think licking her finger. The whipped cream looked like a wedding dress. I did not listen to it much, but I was facinated by the picture, and the thought that someone would have so much whipped cream that they could cover most of there bodies. (as a 6 year I missed the sexual implications, but boy I stared at and thought of that picture for hours, again and again.

Who was the singer, and does anyone know the name of the album. I would like to get a mock up and hang it on my wall.

Alex, Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass "Whipped Cream and other Delights"?

Another early musical memory - I got a little record player for Christmas when I was maybe Little M's age (12). The first record played on it was the soundtrack to Star Wars (the 1977 original with no episode number or subtitle at that point).

Mendalla

Daydream Believer

ninjafaery wrote:

Daydream Believer

 

My friend and I watched the Monkees back in the day (probably when we were 11 or so). I prefer I'm a Believer (the Neil Diamond song they covered, or did he write it for them and then cover it himself?) but this one is good, too. Pleasant Valley Sunday is another good one from them.

Mendalla

I found a copy of the stage version with Julie Andrews singing The Rain in Spain. It is so much better than the film version. Can you imagine that they did not cast her in the movie because she was not considered well known. I mean how could there evr had been a time when Julie was not famous. She's just like her character in Mary Poppins, Practically Perfect in Everyway.

Everyone has to start somewhere. I remember seeing Brad Pitt in A River Runs Through It and, while I thought he was good in it, I didn't even give him a second thought until he started to really get big and then went, "oh, that guy from River...".

I do agree about the whole business of not casting Julie in the film version of Lady, though. Using an actress with a voice double for the singing when they had someone available who could do both and who knew the part seems stupid in retrospect. Sigh, another reminder that Hollywood is a business, not an arts organization.

Mendalla

Thanks alot. My parents had an amazing record collection. However they knew or shared little about music. Looking back I see how amazing the music was from the fifties and sixties, and they had the best of everything, except for pop and folk, (too low brow, or associated with leftists)   I can just imagine them getting there console and than getting the music to go with it.  I imagine my Dad asking at the store, what is good serious music., but none of that lefty or pop stuff.  

Julie Andrews and Audrey Hepburn were both nominated the same year for Oscars. Audrey for My Fair Lady (the role that Julie lost) and Julie for Mary Poppins. Guess who won the Oscar?

LSD!

(jeeez I wish I could embed a video...)

My earliest favourite non-kid songs were from my dad's records.

As a toddler, my absolute favourite was Queen - Another one Bites the Dust.

I also liked Raise A Little Hell (which I sang as Raise a Little L, I thought it was about capitilizing an 'l' to an 'L'), Hot Legs, and Mellow Yellow.

I actually have memories of running around the basement in the first house I lived in listening to these, so it was at least 2 years before kindergarden.

When I was school age? It would have been the London (England) Symphony at St Martin-In-The-Fields. (And when I finally got to the U.K. I was quite disappointed that there wasn't a field in sight: hardly a blade of grass!)

I was at university before I got to listen to popular music. But then I was working 6 nights a week in a jazz club to pay my way — so Miles Davis was big for me, John Coltrane…

The first popular artist I got into was Bob Dylan… he was quite "jazzy" 

Other than big band/swing, which I got into for a while in my teens, I didn't really get interested in jazz or jazz-influenced pop in a big way until I was older, probably into my early thirties. Now love it though I haven't actually bought many recordings.

I don't buy a lot of music, instead treat the library's collection as a kind of rotating collection that I pick a few CDs from at a time depending on my taste at the moment. Right now, it's American rockers Green Day (also my son's favorite at the moment).

Mendalla

That sounds like something Sesame Street might do!

I was a child of the 80s and while I grew up listening to my parents record collection, which included many of the artists others have mentioned (Elvis, The Beatles, Anne Murray - including her version of "Teddy Bear Picnic" - Peter, Paul and Mary and more), the first pop music I ever owned was a cassette by Billy Idol because I loved his song, "Mony, Mony." I had absolutely no idea what the lyrics meant, I just liked the way it sounded. I also enjoyed, "I Think We're Alone Now," by Tiffany. As I got into high school in the 90s, I started getting into musicals - beginning with Phantom of the Opera - and I became infatuated with Bryan Adams. I also really liked, "Believe in Me," by Paul Janz.

ninjafaery wrote:

LSD!

 

 

(jeeez I wish I could embed a video...)

My son got Sgt. Pepper for Christmas and this is one of his favorite songs off of it.

Mendalla

Somegal, it definately wasn't Sesame Street where I got it from though!  My mom and dad seemed to have different ideas about appropriate songs to play around me and she was NOT impressed when I walked in singing Raise a LIttle L after hearing it on the local radio station while in the car with my dad!

I remember I liked "Raise a Little Hell" but it just checked.  It's from 1978.  I can't claim it as a song from my childhood.

Mendalla, Yes, Richard Burton has a gorgeous voice. I have him reading something in a song by Michael Brook that is very evocative, a poem, "bible black, bobbing sea fishing boats..."

Awesome so many memories! I shall return...

I was an ABBA nerd.

LOL - I wasn't really one as a kid now, but I am a bit of one now!

I am reminded of Tiny Bubbles by Don Ho from my Dad singing it.  I can still break into the song, well, at least the refrain.   My Dad was also always singing.....he has a wonderful voice.

Kimmio, Wow! You remember really well! I had Disco Duck too. That's young for Dark Side! I got my first PF album at 15. At 6 & 7 I had Disney soundtracks, the Smurfs and a childrens choir lp from Germany which my best friend learned to count to ten in German from! I also loved Alvin and the Chipmunks. I got into Duran, Bowie and the Culture Club around age 12. I remember my first tapes were Thriller, the Pointer Sisters, Whitney Houston and Chart Breakers 1984, all chosen by adults except the last one which I begged Mom for. I was 10!, of cource... Hey that's pretty cool. I loved the Safety Dance and Pat Benatar. For some reason I can't see the videos posted today, including my own.

Seeler, Those are really neat recollections. Enjoyed reading that.

Damn, bed time. Back tomorrow.

Waterfall, that's great about the dishwashing! I'll have to try and get a song into it, when we teach our son to wash up. That's neat about your Dad singing in the car.

I liked Mony Mony as a kid too, better yet was Hot in the City by him, and Sweet SIxteen.

I also got to watch the Monkees as both a  kid and a teen. My favorite was Mike, though I liked Peter best as a kid for a while. We just got a Monkees cd out for our son : )

My dad was real concerned at 15 when I started getting into the Beatles. I thought it blasphemy at first, that liking the Beatles equated to doing drugs. He also had a fit over that DOn Henley song where the couple make out in the video.

Raise a little L, that's cute. Mom and Dad were concerned about J Geils Band Centerfold, one of my favorite songs as a kid. They asked me if I knew what it meant, I said no, and they were happy with that.

I also remember really liking Hello by Lionel Ritchie as a kid, and Bette Davis Eyes by Kim Carnes, songs my parents liked.

Oh, I can see the videos again today. Youtube must have been on holiday last night or something..

I was blessed in my music influencing years with folks five years older to 70 years older. It meant Buddy Holly. Beatles, and Woodstock stuff alongside Rosemary Clooney, Tommy Dorsey, Muddy Waters and Bessie Smith PLUS everything my own generation exposed me to.

My own Dad was into the 40's stuff, so I got that too.

Ba ba ba ba barbara ann is playing now, I had to chuckle. : D  We got him out a Beach Boys cd too.

My Dad grew up in Liverpool and so instilled in us a penchant for the Beatles.  He had "Sgt. Pepper" on 8-track.  To this day I still love "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" in all its LSD-induced, psychadellic glory.

Come to think of it, I miss the smell of 8-track tapes. 

I'm just a few years too young to have had that experience. 8-Tracks were an odd mystery to me. Couldn't work out how they worked.

I remember feeling betrayed when I found out Lennon had lied that it wasn't about acid. But that was the right thing to do, to lie about it, then. I like that interview with Paul, where he lays the blame for the spread of drug use on the reporter who is shelling the story out to the masses, not on himself for doing the drugs. The reporter asks the questions, and Paul doesn't want to lie.

I think the first album I bought myself was "An innocent man" by Billy Joel. Even so my top favorites from my early years was Bon Jovi, Poison, Def Lepard, and stuff like that. Really I do like a pretty broad spectrum of 80's rock including Go-go's. Madonna, Billy Joel, Hall and Oats, Genesis, Joan Jett, C + C music factory, Bangles, Wham, Duran Duran, Culture Club, etc. The list could get really long.