Snake Saturday Parade — mini-preview

Miles and Miles of Irish Smiles is the theme for this year’s Snake Saturday Parade. As we have for the last several years, my family will be marching in the parade, with a float from Avondale United Methodist Church.

This is the church’s 100th birthday, and we want to have 100 smiles marching and singing with our float and banners and signs.

It is the singing part that I am responsible for.

“Just find some Irish songs about smiles that we can sing.” Sounds simple.  Isn’t.

Okay, “When Irish Eyes are Smiling” is a good song, the chorus anyway.  Try to have a group of people sing verses and chorus while marching, and it is liable to fall apart.

And for other “smile” songs.  I did web searches and found several.  But I didn’t know any of them, and most of them weren’t exactly singable range for the average group — they were performance songs.

So I have constructed a song set with “When Irish Eyes are Smiling” and three other hymn tunes that are bright, cheery, and hopefully hit a good theme for the church. Actually, the three hymns have good key transitions, and subject linkages. There is only a small jump from Irish Eyes to the first hymn. (Note to self: remember to bring pitch-pipe and give starting keys. Will make a world of difference.)

So here I am putting out a request: one last chance to update the song list.  If anyone knows a good, a capella singable song about smiles, preferably Irish/Celtic, that people are likely to know, or at least easy to learn and remember, let me know, I can still mix it up.

And for those of you in the Kansas City area,  Hope to see you at the parade Saturday (marching with me if you are from AUMC — 100 smiles, after all).