Intergenerational fun

 A favorite song for children and adults to join together...

All God's critters got a place in the choir
Some sing low, some sing higher
Some sing out loud on the telephone wires
And some just clap their hands, or paws, or anything they got
All God's critters got a place in the choir
Some sing low, some sing higher
Some sing out loud on the telephone wires
And some just clap their hands, or paws, or anything they got now

Listen to the bass, it's the one on the bottom
Where the bullfrog croaks and the hippopotamus
Moans and groans with a big t'do
And the old cow just goes moo

The dogs and the cats they take up the middle
While the honeybee hums and the cricket fiddles
The donkey brays and the pony neighs
And the old coyote howls

All God's critters got a place in the choir
Some sing low, some sing higher
Some sing out loud on the telephone wires
And some just clap their hands, or paws, or anything they got now

Listen to the top where the little birds sing
On the melodies with the high notes ringing
The hoot owl hollers over everything
And the jaybird disagrees

Singin' in the night time, singing in the day

The little duck quacks, then he's on his way

The 'possum ain't got much to say
And the porcupine talks to himself

All God's critters got a place in the choir
Some sing low, some sing higher
Some sing out loud on the telephone wires
And some just clap their hands, or paws, or anything they got now

Illustration for the 1917 book Christmas in the Wood by Philip Vinton Clayton

It's a simple song of living sung everywhere
By the ox and the fox and the grizzly bear
The grumpy alligator the the hawk above
The sly raccoon and the turtle dove

All God's critters got a place in the choir
Some sing low, some sing higher
Some sing out loud on the telephone wires
And some just clap their hands, or paws, or anything they got now

All God's critters got a place in the choir
Some sing low, some sing higher
Some sing out loud on the telephone wires
And some just clap their hands, or paws, or anything they got now

Above photos from the Halloween critter parade in Black Mountain NC 2024

When I've been in a choir singing this, frequently children (or adults) would give the voices of the animals at the end of each line. So it was pretty fun!

A video gives the melody, in case you want to sing along!

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From the internet

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Sharing with Saturday's Critters

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Yesterday was Pearl Buck's birthday, the author of The Good Earth. Here's a quote from her, which really means a lot to me.

The truly creative mind in any field is no more than this: A human creature born abnormally, inhumanly sensitive. To him... a touch is a blow, a sound is a noise, a misfortune is a tragedy, a joy is an ecstasy, a friend is a lover, a lover is a god, and failure is death. Add to this cruelly delicate organism the overpowering necessity to create, create, create -- so that without the creating of music or poetry or books or buildings or something of meaning, his very breath is cut off from him. He must create, must pour out creation. By some strange, unknown, inward urgency he is not really alive unless he is creating. -Pearl S. Buck, novelist, Nobel laureate (26 Jun 1892-1973)

FYI:

 Pearl Buck was born in Hillsboro, West Virginia, in 1892 to two Presbyterian missionaries, Absalom and Caroline Sydenstriker. The family moved to China when Buck was three months old, and she lived there for most of the next 40 years. As a child, she was homeschooled by her mother in the mornings. In the afternoon, she was taught classical Chinese by a scholar named Mr. Kung.

Her first novel, East Wind, West Wind, (1930) sold well, but it was her second novel, The Good Earth (1931), about a clan of Chinese peasants struggling to survive during a drought, that became an international best-seller and won Buck the Pulitzer Prize. She was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature in 1938, one of only two American women to do so (the second was Toni Morrison).