Three Types of Pub Song
If you’ve ever led a song at a pub sing, you’ve been in the room thinking about which song you want to sing, when to start it, and whether it’ll go well. When I’m thinking about what song I’d like to lead, I find it useful to think about three categories of pub song:
Pickupable
A pickupable song will quickly get most folks singing along even if they’ve never heard the song before. It might have a simple chorus, an easy refrain or repeating line, or be call and response. It usually doesn’t need a teach for folks to pick it up (unless the crowd is especially new to group singing). When a pickupable song is led at a sing, the whole room is full of confident singing.
Some examples include lots of shanties like Sam’s Gone Away, Santiana, Cape Cod Girls, etc, repeating refrain songs like Chickalaleeoh and Old Jacky Frost, or call and response songs like When I Rise and Tinny Lend Me Your Pigeon.
Challenging
A challenging song is difficult to pick up and sing along with on first listen. There might be a chorus with a lot of words, a long line to listen for and remember the words to sing back, or a surprising rhythm. When a challenging song is led at a sing, the strongest followers might catch it and maybe a few folks will be familiar and singing along, but most folks will be mumbling along or not able to join in.
Standard
A standard song is a challenging song that is known by enough folks at the sing that it goes well even though it’s difficult to pick up. It might have one or two spots that are easy and fun for everyone to join within the larger, trickier song. There are enough folks in the room singing it confidently that it is easier for others to join in and blend in with the crowd as they catch bits and pieces of it.
Which specific songs are standard songs varies widely sing to sing and region to region. Some local examples at Violet Folk Sings include Old Dun Cow, Katie Cruel, When We Sing Together, and My Home.
Which category is my song in?
It can be tough to judge how hard a song is to join. If you’re excited about a song, you’ve probably listened to it and sang it a lot, so it seems easy to you! Here’s some questions you can ask about a song in advance to judge if it’s pickupable:
- How many words are in the chorus? More words makes a song more challenging to pick up.
- How fast is it? Faster words means less time to hear them and remember how they go before they’ve gone by
- Do any lines repeat? Repeated lines make a song easier
- How rangey is it? Is the highest note much higher than the lowest note? A big range is more technically difficult to sing
- How simple is the melody and rhythm? Are there big or surprising jumps in the melody? Does it have a tricky note?
- Do the words the group sings change? If so, how long is it between hearing the words and singing them back?
- How similar is it to other folk songs? A song with familiar tropes or melodic phrases will be easier for folks to pick up. A song with unexpected moments will be trickier
Whether a song is pickupable or not depends on the skill level of the room as well as the difficulty of the song itself. A song might be pickupable at one sing but challenging at another. Following along with a song you don’t know is itself a skill, so therefore the threshold for a song to be considered challenging is a lot higher in a room with skillful followers than in a room full of newcomers.
When you’re at a sing, you can try to judge the skill of the room by seeing how quickly songs are getting picked up, to guess if your song will be pickupable for the group. If someone leads a song where not many folks join in right away, it’s not a standard song in the room. Here’s some things to watch and listen for in that case to judge how well a room might pick up your song:
- Are folks singing harmonies? If so, are the harmonies coming out right away, or near the end?
- How many people are singing along? Is it a few strong ringers carrying, or are most folks joining in by the end?
- Are people catching lyrics? Or is it mostly enthusiastic mumblejumble word approximations?
How songs become standard
If you have a challenging song that you love, and you want it to be standard at your local sing, you can make that happen. Sing it at several events in a row, in moments when the room has capacity for a challenging song. Teach it to friends so that they can sing along with you and be plants in the room. Consider a teach to introduce it to the room before you start; be aware of how much time your intro takes up so you don’t dominate the floor for too long. Over time folks will know it more and more, you’ll get known as “the person who sings x song”, and eventually you’ll reach critical mass and it’ll be a standard. Be careful and thoughtful as you do this, because there’s only so much capacity for challenging songs at a given sing. Pay attention to how up for learning the room is feeling, and to how many challenging or standard songs have happened already.
Choosing when to lead your song
Some rules of thumb:
- Pickupable songs are basically always a safe choice. They get the energy up and help everyone feel connected to the music and to each other
- Maybe don’t lead another challenging song right after a challenging song. It takes a lot of brain to try to sing a challenging song, and likely not everyone was able to sing along, so usually the room wants something easier that everyone can join afterwards
- If you want to lead a challenging song (possibly you’re dreaming of making it standard at your sing), do it at a moment when the energy is good, folks are warmed up, and a pickupable song just happened.
- Be aware of too many standard songs in a row - the energy in the room might be high because they’re beloved songs for folks in the know, but a newcomer can start feeling discouraged if they keep not being able to join in
- If you notice several standard and/or challenging songs in a row, consider leading a pickupable song to help keep everyone included
- When choosing a song to lead at an unfamiliar sing, be aware if a song in your repertoire is standard at your usual sing and might not be known in a new place. It’s totally fine to ask eg “do folks here know Santa Georgia?” and have a pickupable song in your back pocket to pivot to if the answer is no.
Finding the balance at a sing
There’s as many types of sing as there are sings, but it can be helpful to think about what ratio of pickupable to standard to challenging songs a given gathering wants and choose your songs to help make that happen.
If the goal of a sing is to have everyone singing as much as possible, and be friendly to beginners, then it should be mostly pickupable songs, some standard songs, and only a few challenging songs.
Maybe the sing is large and high energy, but with experienced pub singers wanting to sing confidently with each other. Here, many songs might be more pickupable because of the high skill. The collection of standard songs is likely larger. This sing might be ideally half pickupable, half standard, and a few challenging.
If a sing is small and intimate, with folks who are deep in the pub singing world, then maybe the mood is more about sharing new songs and deep cuts with each other, with less emphasis on everyone singing all the time and more excitement about swapping songs back and forth. Folks might be excited to sing harder songs they don’t sing as often, or to listen to a new song they haven’t heard. Here it might be a quarter pickupable, a quarter standard, and half challenging.
None of these example ratios are better or worse than the others; they’re just a different audience and intention. Most sings will have a mix of all three types of song. Pickupable songs are great because they invite people in and are easy for everyone to rock out and connect through without using too much brain power. Standard songs build a feeling of community, because as a person starts to recognize them they feel a sense of belonging; they’re someone who knows the songs. Challenging songs have the potential to become standard songs someday, bring variety and interest, and slowly expand the repertoire of the sing.
This framing is a helpful way for me to think about my repertoire when I’m choosing a song to lead. I hope it helps you see your songs from a new perspective. When we bring more intention to our song choices, we build a stronger singing community.