As you may have read in my other articles on campfire singing, I tend to promote certain campfire songs over and over again. Admittedly, there are several songs that seem like campfire standards. In this article, I’d like to introduce you to some other campfire songbook gems. These campfire songs are ones you may or may not be familiar with. These are great songs to include in your campfire sing-along.

• House in sight:

  Home on the Range is often considered the anthem of the Old West. I imagine a group of cowboys or pioneers sitting around a campfire singing this song. It would have to have happened after the 1870s, because that was when it was written. A doctor, Brewster M. Higley, wrote the words. It was originally a poem called “My Western Home.” It was first published in December 1873 in Kansas under the title “Oh Give Me a Home Where the Buffalo Roam”. Higley later had a friend named Dan Kelley write music to accompany the lyrics. The song became popular and was sung by cowboys, pioneers, and almost everyone knew the song. In 1947 it became the official song of the state of Kansas. When you sing this song, it brings to mind a vision of what it must have been like in the old west; tall grass meadows; deer, antelope, buffalo, and other roaming animals; starry nights; clear blue skies during the day. Can you think of a more peaceful scene? When life gets hectic with work, family, and other activities, this is a good simple song to sing and get away from it all, even if only for 30 seconds.

• Oh Susan:

  I would consider this another traditional campfire song. It was originally written by Stephen Foster. He wrote both the words and the music in 1847. It became popular very quickly. Only a couple of years later, when the Forty-Niners invaded San Francisco, they picked it up and it became something of an official song of the California Gold Rush. They sang the original lyrics, but they invented other verses of their own. One of the most popular alternative verses goes like this: Soon I will be in Frisco and there I will look around. And when I see the lumps of gold there, I will tear them out of the ground. I will clean the mountains, boys, I will dry the rivers. A pocket full of rocks brings home, So, brothers, don’t cry. This is a fun song to sing uptempo. It’s an easy song for both guitar and banjo. I personally like the banjo in this song. Maybe it’s because he talks about the banjo in the song.

• Old Dan Tucker:

  This is an old minstrel song from the mid-1840s. Like most minstrel songs, it was originally supposed to be a boastful song about a tough and smart black man. Eventually, it was meant to portray a mythical wild frontiersman of whom fantastic stories could be told. There are hundreds of verses about Old Dan Tucker; I have included just a couple in The Great American Camp Fire Song Book.

• May the sun shine forever:

  This song is not American at all, but Russian. It’s very simple, with just 4 lines repeated over and over again. When I have done it with children, I like to teach Russian letters. The first 5 syllables of each line are exactly the same: Pust seg da bud still, pronounced Poost seg dah bood still. The last word of each line is as follows: 1)Son se, 2)Nye be, 3)Ma ma, 4)bood oh yah. On the fourth line, replace bood still with bood oh. I hope this makes sense to you. I have heard this song done both fast and slow. I also heard the melody used in a beautiful choral piece by Z. Randall Stroope. The piece is called Inscription of Hope. It is about the hope that helped many survive during the Holocaust. Around a campfire, I would do the lively, fast version.

• shenandoah:

  This probably originated as a river shanty in the original 19th century. It was first popular with sailors and then spread from there, up and down the Missouri and Mississippi rivers. We do not know for sure what its original meaning was. Some say it was a traveler in love with the daughter of an Indian chief, telling the chief that she intends to take her west with him. Others interpret it as a pioneer’s longing for his home in Virginia’s Shenandoah River Valley. Whatever the original intention of it, it has a beautiful melody. Around a campfire, it can be an effective song, if you want a subdued and soft mood. If not, you should probably sing something else.

• Drinking cider through a straw:

  I couldn’t find any background information on this song. We don’t really know who wrote it or when. I’ve heard that the sippy straw was invented in 1813, so it was probably written after that. I guess it was written in the 20th century. Two things make this an easy and fun song. First, it’s fun to sing with a lisp. Second, it’s an echo song, so whoever is conducting the song must know the words pretty well. That makes it easy for everyone else; all they have to do is echo.

I hope you have fun with these six campfire songs. You can find them all in The Great American Camp Fire Song Book.