Sing A Song Sunday - The Keeper

It's that time again - Sunday!! Today's choice from Rise Up Singing is The Keeper, an old folk song. Here is a version from the Weavers, and here's the score. Don't you love it when you can find free resources to use in therapy sessions? I do, I do!


The information that I can find about this song is sparse, to say the least (maybe that's why it's free!). Songfacts.com has only a little bit of information - there are different publications of the song that have included up to fifteen verses. I only have five verses in my little book, but I bet my clients could write some more! We could totally change the story of the song into something classroom or residence-related. I would probably change the response that Jackie-boy makes so we are saying something other than "Master." People tend to get touchy about that type of terminology, so we could replace it with "Yes, sir." We would probably have to change the "ho down" as well to keep the giggles at bay. We could just replace the "ho" with another "hey down."

This would be a great song for an Orffestration. I could see kids all over playing this on xylophones and metallophones with a bass drone. Hmmm. Maybe it's time to bring out my sheet music and pencil...

It's now time to move into the cold world and get ready for the week. I think I may have this worked up into a TME by Tuesday...

Stay Tuned.

Happy Sunday, all! Enjoy the song!!

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