Sing A Song Sunday - The Last Thing On My Mind

I flipped to pages 125 and 126 in Rise Up Singing and chose The Last Thing on My Mind by Tom Paxton as today's song. You can find the video of Tom singing this song at this link. You can find the melody line at this link. Now, I've never heard this song before, but apparently it was covered by quite a few people - Joan Baez, Dolly Parton, Neil Diamond, and a huge, unverified list of others (listed on Wikipedia, so consider the source). I find the song to be typical of folk-ish type songs of the 60's - steady tempo, familiar and repetitive rhythmic patterns, and lyrics that are sweet.

 Now I have something new to practice this week. I'm not exactly sure how I will incorporate this particular song into my sessions, but that is part of the goal of these Sing A Song Sundays - increasing my repertoire and giving me something new to sing.

As I am getting ready to move into a new music therapy space, I am working on the type of therapy that I want to present to my clients. Trauma-centered care is one of the types of therapy that I am focusing on preparing, and I think this song could be used to address some sensitive topics for some of my older students. It's one that I will learn and introduce slowly.

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