Last camp, Somer and I headed up an impromptu music meltdown at one of the mountain’s many excellent bench circles. It was a ferocious and spirited exercise in stick percussion, faking it through bridges, and asking everyone if they knew this song. It was also lots of fun. But this time, when asked to coordinate an Official Jam Sesh, I wanted to do better. A good jamalong/singalong song is made up of an easily follow-able chord pattern, a chorus that everyone knows (or can quickly learn), and the kind of bone structure that lets it sound good unadorned. If you’ve ever been asked to “play something” and found yourself suddenly lost for chords, this playlist is for you.
TRY-ITS FOR EVERYONE.
Singalong Jam Sesh
Cecilia – Simon & Garfunkel
Party in the USA – Miley Cyrus
Brown Eyed Girl – Van Morrison
Hotel Yorba – The White Stripes
Creep – Radiohead
Living Room – Tegan & Sara
Blister In The Sun – Violent Femmes
Strangers – The Kinks
You and I – Ingrid Michaelson
Let Me Know – Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Free Fallin’ – Tom Petty
New Slang – The Shins
Sunday Morning – The Velvet Underground
Wonderwall – Oasis
Hey Jude – The Beatles
Wagon Wheel – Old Crow Medicine Show
Want to suggest a playlist theme? Hit Stef up and someone on the team might make it for you.
perfect perfect perfect. Fond memory of my Dad this Summer trying to sing the chorus of You and I haha.
On a useful-for-singalongs side-note: You can play almost any song ever with a capo on 5th and the chord progression C Em G. Especially Tegan and Sara songs (and the reason I know this really isn’t because I though it’d be fun to play a T+S medley at my school’s end of year music festival last year. because everyone had totally heard of them)
-sigh-
This is so incredibly perfect. I’m just going to throw “Puff the Magic Dragon” in here, and probably hijack this for our next bonfire-social here at school.
WELL IT’S 1 2 3 4 ::slaps hands against table::
TAKE THE ELEVATOR
Is this a queer singalong playlist without any Indigo Girls?
i know! maybe Closer to Fine is implied?
Sigh, where was this playlist last Saturday night when I ended up, post nightclub, at a party full of queer girls, one of whom had an acoustic guitar and emotional issues from a recent breakup.
Any of these suggestions would have helped the situation. In the absence of this magnificent list, I simply had to let SadDykeFest13 rage on and drink some seriously aggressive white chocolate liqueur stuff straight from the bottle and pretend it wasn’t awkward.
Free Falling is my go-to two chord jam. (Also it was playing on the car stereo back when I had my first girl kiss, so it is a part of my personal queer history).
this is everything, Cara, EVERYTHING.
Cara, this playlist is perfect. I love it so much!
WAGON WHEEL. Yes. Always.