Grandchildren’s Delight: Best Loved Songs From the Good Old Days as performed by Daria Marmaluk-Hajioannou has been on our kitchen counter, within easy reach of our CD player for the past year. We’ve been enjoying it so much we thought we just couldn’t keep it to ourselves any longer.
I love the title including ‘From The Good Old Days’. Although these songs are from a generation before mine, I did grow up listening to and singing a good number of these tunes in school. I cringe at the thought that I may be referring to the ‘good old days’ to my own children soon…cue the creaking knee joints now.
Daria says,
This album is dedicated to the grandparents and teachers who have taken the time to share the best of the past with our wonderful children who will be the seeds of a bright future! Your words and works are remembered, appreciated, and cherished!
My personal favourite on this compilation is ‘This Land Is My Land’ and ‘La Cucaracha’ as I have fond membories of my favourite teacher, who herself loved music and instilled her love of fine arts with her students. We’d often have music class a couple of times a week and sing while she played the piano. I haven’t heard these songs in years, and I’m glad I can now share them with my children.
‘Playmate’ is fun for the kids to learn the hand-clapping actions to. They are already familiar with ‘You Are My Sunshine’, as I used to sing this to Kallista when she was a baby and it would help calm her down. We even have our own actions to go along with this song, too.
What else is on this album?
Grandchildren’s Delight is loaded with these little gems:
This Little Light of Mine
Do Your Ears Hang Low
Liza Jane
Oh Susannah
This Land Is Your Land
Grand Old Flag
Akin Drum
Playmate
Jadda-Three Little Fishies
You Are My Sunshine
Angels Watching Over Me
Down By The Riverside
Over In The Meadow
La Cucaracha
Be Kind To Your Webbed Footed Friends
Some of these songs are new to me, such as ‘Be Kind To Your Web-Footed Friends’ ‘Over In The Meadow’, and ‘Akin Drum’. My children love Akin Drum, and the way he’s made from all manor of food. We haven’t done it yet, but what fun would it be to re-create Akin Drum for lunch one day!
The only negative to this album is that I enjoy it so much that the kids are subjected to my very bad singing voice! If you’d like to give it a spin (in Daria’s lovely voice, of course), you can purchase it via Amazon (affiliate link), or through Daria’s Little Village Store.
As you can see, my children had a lot of fun listening to this album while dancing in the back garden with the rainsticks they made last summer. In true multicultural form that I’m sure Daria would approve of, they are wearing clothes from New Zealand and Japan, using rainsticks (South American), and singing Aiken Drum (Scottish), and wearing Daria’s tattoos (American), all while in Northern Ireland!
If you’d like to read more about the fun we’ve had with Daria’s music, please click over to these posts:
Or see our music page where you’ll find all of these posts, and more.
If you’d like to know more about Daria, you can connect with her via Daria Music, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and YouTube.
We received this album as payment for our Musical Rainsticks post, but we’ve been enjoying it so much we wanted to share it with you.
