Subject: Class Song
From: jd3_41@yahoo.com
Date: Thu May 28 2009 - 12:00:54 CDT
Hi Larry,
I'm not quite sure what you have in mind as "the class song," but as far as I personally am concerned it was that marvelous little ditty "Sam Was a Duck" with music (kazoo or jew's harp) and lyrics by that Irving Berlin of Ethel Street, Tom Davis. I think Buck Marris may also have been part of the highly talented creative process. I was but an awe-struck bystander albeit one who joined in the first singing of the song. During the 1950s whether in school, summer camp or just hanging out, whenever in need of a laugh or a lift we would sing "Sam Was a Duck."
After we all graduated and went our separate ways, I often visited remote places yet to be blessed by electricity and television. At night there usually were only three options: drinking, singing and that third thing. I always have been a terrible singer, but when my
turn came up it would have been impossibly rude to prevaricate with excuses. Rather than choose "99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall," I always have given a boisterous rendition of "Sam Was a Duck." In certain longhouses along the Mekong and Irrawaddy Rivers, in Thimpu teahouses, at gatherings on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and in towns on the edge of the Taklamakhan and Gobi deserts, Sam now is not unknown.
Did anyone else take this song in different directions?
Best,
John Dolfin
--- On Thu, 5/28/09, eljay1@bellsouth.net <eljay1@bellsouth.net> wrote:
From: eljay1@bellsouth.net <eljay1@bellsouth.net>
Subject: Re: Trivia question
To: "Ottawa Hills - 1959" <ohhs59@venus.soci.niu.edu>
Date: Thursday, May 28, 2009, 12:28 PM
Another trivia question. Who wrote the Class Song, and can anyone remember the opening
line(s). No fair if you had anything to do with its creation.
Ottawa Hills High School Discussion List - 1959
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