ACA Home Forums Banned camp songs

...am surprised that you guys don't have more "banned songs." i guess my camp must be fairly unique in that department, we have a whole assortment of them. most include drinking, smoking, and drunken counselors. while the songs are officially banned, we still try to keep the knowledge of them alive when the director and older administrative staff aren't around...all in good fun!

hey on the song baby shark... here are the verses we sing at our camp, which ones of these do you guys sing too?
Baby Shark
Mama shark
daddy shard
gramma shark
grandpa shark
shark attack
lost my arm
lost my leg
swim in circles
lifeguard see
lifeguard save
That's the end
there aint no more
seriously guys

you may think we take it a bit too far, but the kids LOVE it, it's a good one to sing that takes up a lot of time before meals, plus the kids really get into it and dance around and stuff...
so we think it's fun

Our Baby Shark Verses:
Baby Shark
Mama Shark
Daddy Shark
Grandma Shark
Grandpa Shark
Going Swimming
Saw a Shark
Swimming faster
Shark Attack
Lost a leg
That's the end

our is:

baby shark
mamma shark
daddy shark
grampa shark
went swimming
shark attack
lost an arm
lost a leg
went unconscious (don't do the do-do-do's... just sit there unconscious)
call 9-1-1
try CPR
didn't make it
went to Heaven
didn't want me
came back as a ... baby shark

baby shark
mama shark
daddy shark
grandpa shark
person swimming
life gaurd watchin
see a shark
shark attack
lost a leg
life gaurd rowing
life gaurd saving
cpr
funeral (sad)
burialn (dig hole-fun)
went to heaven
maybe not (devil horns)

alternately, i've sang a version where the person lives but walks real funny

I really like this song (we sang it last weekend on our outdoor recreation trip for first year majors)

My turtle swims sideways
Your turtle swims upside down
My turtle swims sideways
cause your turtle is DEAD!

Sparklelicious, that song is so cute!!! is it to a tune I would recognize by any chance?

Baby shark, Brother shark, Mama shark, Daddy shark, Grandma shark, Surfer dude (pretend to be surfing, jumping from left to right), Shark attack, Lost an Arm, Lost a Leg, 911, CPR, Happy Shark, that the End.

The camps I have worked at haven't been all that big on the "traditional" camp songs I suppose- the only one I recognize, like camper, is the baby shark one and we renamed it baby jaws. We cut out anything that might have been violent- we just went from "shark attack" to "happy jaws" and left it at that. I worked at a day camp though so I can just imagine the complaints we would have gotten from some parents if we started talking about losing arms and legs to sharks.

haha we do baby, mama, daddy, grandpa, surfer, lost an arm, and then and the end we yell WIPEOUT! haha.

lol.. my camp's baby shark is really violent compared to yours...

there was a boy (dot dot do do do)
and a girl (dot dot do do do)
they went for a walk (dot dot do do do)
they took off their clothes (dot dot do do do)
they went for a swim (dot dot do do do)
and all was quiet (dot dot do do do)
and all was still (dot dot do do do)
EXCEPT FOR THR SHARKS (dot dot do do do)
the daddy sharks (dot dot do do do)
the mommy sharks (dot dot do do do)
the baby sharks(dot dot do do do)
the granny sharks (dot dot do do do)
and all was quiet (dot dot do do do)
and all was still (dot dot do do do)
they took off an arm (dot dot do do do)
the other arm (dot dot do do do)
and then a leg (dot dot do do do)
the other leg (dot dot do do do)
and then the head (dot dot do do do)
THE WATER WAS RED (dot dot do do do)
and all was quiet (dot dot do do do)
and all was still (dot dot do do do)
EXCEPT FOR THE SHARKS!!!

the girls love this song.. it was introduced summer of 2000 and it has been sung non stop since!

Turtlez, the turtle song is to the tune of Pomp and Circumstance (the graduation song), at least the way I know it.

ah, yes the shark song. Ours is baby, momma, daddy, granma, granpa, going swimming, see a shark, swim real fast, shark attack, lost a leg, go to heaven, the end. Of course, some cabins make up more about like meeting god and stuff- it's crazy.

Witchcraft was banned at our camp. Of course, most people still sing it- just not around the director. it's the last song we sing during devotion and most of the campers are asleep. And not to mention this is one of our biggest traditions singing this song.

The one we sang wasn't to any tunes that I recognized. If I get a chance I will record myself singing it an post it for you or something.

I don't remember what our verses were for Baby Shark...I think they contained a few here and there from many of yours! Another thing we did ALL the time was sing just a few lines from a Veggie Tales song "Oh where is my hairbrush! Oh wheeeeeeere is my hairbrush! Oh where oh where oh where oh where oh where oh where oh wheeeeeeere, is my hairbrush" And of course substitute in another word for whatever. Oh where is my backpack, stuff like that.
About the inappropriate songs...I was watching a camper video on a website awhile ago. The boys (about 10 years old) where doing sort of a spoof on American Idol and one of the boys was singing "Like A Virgin". Anyone else find this highly inappropriate?

hmmm. well, we have a whole handful of banned songs. "the cannibal king," "the bugler song," the "girl scout camp" song. basically anything that is pretty violent or says negative things about girl scouts... some of them i understand, some i find ridiculous. we've also had a move towards more non-denominational graces. this i really appreciate. every summer i find myself leading a lot of graces that i wouldn't even consider singing at home. i continue to sing them because, at least early in the summer, i'm one of the few staff members who really knows them. but i much prefer to sing the completely non-denomonational graces. my favorite being the simple "we love our bread, we love our butter, but most of all we love each other." short, sweet, and not at all religious.

Wow. Banning One Tin Soldier. Joan Baez would have a freak out. One Tin Soldier is actually not about judgment day, but how greed and competition makes the world unbearable. And how Peace on Earth would be a treasure.

I know we don't sing "Titanic" anymore (it was sad when the great ship went down to the bottom of the, husbands and wives little children lost their lives, it was sad when the great ship went down, etc.). All references to Native Americans are out.

Sadly, if we picked apart every camp song so many of them would be "banned." I think that's why we sing them with the premise of "it's a camp song, silly."

Lizz, they banned the girl scout camp song?!? Wow, crazy. I learned that at Scout camp as like a daisy and it was always a favorite. Do you still do the girl scout comb and a girl scout brush song? crazy crazy crazy....

What's the girl scout song?

There was one that was brought to us by a new counselor one year that the staff kind of fell in love with, and it seemed like the campers did too... a little too much (singing it non-stop)... so we ended up deciding to not sing it 'til later in the week for the rest of the summer. The song was "Sam, Sam the Lavatory Man" I don't know what we were thinking.

o jeezums, we used to sing it, except we used Stan. Thats one song i wouldn't have been surprised to see banned. never liked it much myself, but the kids tended to like it alot.

nebit, i think it's because our old program director doesn't like the song. and she just created a reason out of "negative" lyrics. and now it's one of the songs that no one knows, so it would take quite a while to come back... kind of like how 'dum dum da da' is banned from the dining hall because it's just so unbearably loud.

Oh gosh. "Sam Sam the outhouse man" has to be the most terrifying camp song ever. I learned it as a camper, but luckily that tradition never continued.

it's been about 5 years since I worked at camp... so I'm not really sure if they've banned any songs since then, but while I was there, the only songs that got banned were those that the counselors got sick of singing... and those would only be banned for the rest of the session.
We did sing Cannibal King, as well as Titanic... As long as the kids sing the "husbands and wives, little children lost their lives" instead of their favorite "uncles and aunts, little children lost their pants."
I agree that most camp songs are probably "ban-able" if they were to be picked apart...
Which got me thinking about one of my favorite songs... Okay.. I don't know the actual title of this song... but here it is...
On the 43rd of May, my Willie passed away.
He died a harder death than he'd ever died before.
He was sittin' in a chair, but he didn't like it there, so he got up, and died
Around the corner, under a tree,
Sgt. Major said to me...
Who would marry you, I would like to know,
cause every time I look at your face, it makes me want to go
Down by the Old Mill Stream
where I first met you
it was there I knew

okay it goes on and on, but that's where my memory gets a little rusty... basically its all little bits of songs put together into one long crazy song. but it ends with "and there was grandma, swinging on the outhouse door, without her nighty, waiting for the garbage man, he never showed up... swinging... on the... out... house... doooooor. She wears pajamas."

If you looked almost any part of that song on its own, it could be banned, but when you put them together you realize it is just about being silly... anyway, now its gonna kill me because i can't remember the rest of it, so please someone help me!!!!

Ahh! I've always heard it as "My Reindeer flys sideways, your reindeer flys upside down ... "

It's to the tune of the pomp and circumstance and I know that there's more to it -- something about wearing PJs and sleeping in the nude. Not the most appropriate song, but funny nonetheless.