Songs

 I was playing Alex Harvey's The Soldier on the Wall in the car today. It's an Auden poem about the feelings of a Roman soldier on Hadrian's Wall. (It was the best Photostory video I ever made.) It was rather spoiled later when following a link in the BBC's Education Newsletter I encountered a video of Jedward on the very same wall.

Luckily, things picked up when, over the ironing, I watched a documentary on the Small Faces. I never realised that the basic theme for their album Ogden's Nut Gone Flake was what happens to the Moon during the month. I intend to play some poor children Stanley Unwin's gobbledy-gook recitation from the album.






I can't leave the use of songs in teaching there, I'm afraid. There are so many I'd like to get reaction to (and many I have already). Here's a few:-
     Victorians & Mining - The Testimony of Patience Kershaw by The Unthanks 
                                - Close the Coal House Door by Alex Glasgow
                                - Blackleg Miner by Steeleye Span
     Environment          - Neptune by the Poozies
                                - Earth Song by Michael Jackson
                                - The Earth was once green by Runrig
                                - The people are scratching by Pete Seeger
     Capital Punishment - Hangman by Roy Harper
                                 - Derek Bentley by Ewan MacColl
                                 - Death Row by Pete Seeger
      War                     - Waltzing Matilda by June Tabor
                                 - Universal Soldier by Donovan
                                 - My Youngest Son Came Home Today by Mary Black
                                 - Masters of War by Bob Dylan

Better stop there. I get a bit obsessive.