So, how many of you were familiar with the song before?

[xiphias]

The "Boom de ada" song that the Discovery Channel ad uses -- how many of you sang it at camp and so forth, and how many of you never heard it before the Discovery Channel or xkcd version?

I love the mountains
I love the rolling hills
I love the flowers
Especially the daffodils
I love the fireside
When all the lights are low
Boom de ada boom de ada
Boom de ada boom de ada

Comments

[tylik.livejournal.com]

*laughs* I still don't have youtube working on my box (I've heard it will work under Gnash now, and I am resisting installing flash) so I still haven't seen the the Discovery Channel ad... I guessed that was the song (camp for me), though. Glad to know.

[sarianna.livejournal.com]

I've never actually "heard" it, only seen that on xkcd. I find this Discovery Channel version rather disturbing.

[noveldevice.livejournal.com]

Songs about the earth are pagan and summer camp is worldly.

(That would be a no.)

[tylik.livejournal.com]

*blink*

What? (upbringing reference?)

[noveldevice.livejournal.com]

I was raised in a Christian cult, as xiphias knows. It was a reference to that.

[tylik.livejournal.com]

How broadly did the songs about the earth bit go? I seem to remember a lot of specifically Christian songs about tilling and sowing and suchlike...

[noveldevice.livejournal.com]

See above re cult.

[tylik.livejournal.com]

I have a friend who says that she spent most of her childhood in a Christian cult, where in summer camp was a recruitment strategy, and I think they'd adopted a lot of the Quaker songs. This did not apparently (to her) make it less cult like.

[noveldevice.livejournal.com]

I was raised in the Worldwide Church of God, an old-testament based Christian cult. It was one of the more isolationist of the cults that stays in the mainstream. About eight years ago the at the time new Pastor General (head of the cult) started moving it more mainstream and now it's a Sunday church and recognized by some of the kookier mainstream evangelical Christian organizations, but when I was a kid, it was nucking futs.

We weren't supposed to sing songs like "This Land Is Your Land".

[tylik.livejournal.com]

Ah! Okay, that's a metric I can see.

"Sunday church"? Does this mean that it's something people can just attend on Sundays and still have life outside of church, or was it an other-than-Sunday church before?

[noveldevice.livejournal.com]

It was a Sabbath church.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

You know, I don't disagree with either of your postulates there . . .

[noveldevice.livejournal.com]

:) Both those things were bad.

[patgreene.livejournal.com]

Summer camp, check. Boom de ah da, check. The first time I saw the ad (or one of them, there are a couple of different versions -- I watch far more Discovery Channel than is good for me), I fell over laughing.

[navrins]

Never heard it before xkcd. Was confused. saxikath posted a link to the Discovery commercial. Got less confused.

[bradhicks.livejournal.com]

Not only had I never heard it before, I hadn't seen the Discovery Channel version yet, either; that XKCD left me completely scratching my head. Thanks for the info!

[babalon-it.livejournal.com]

Same here!

[pogodragon.livejournal.com]

I was confused by/didn't get the xkcd reference, but I've now been enlightened via my Flist and YouTube.

[oneironaut.livejournal.com]

It was clear to me that the XKCD comic was parody (is it filk if it's not explicitly fandom-based?), but I was sure I'd never heard the song; I just watched the Discovery Channel version and it's actually waking vague memories, though I'm not sure where I heard it. Not camp.

I'm surprised by how delighted I am by the Discovery Channel version. I've pretty much given up on the whole Discovery family of channels since they apparently stopped trying to do anything but shock me, but that makes me want to go watch some documentaries.

[wcg.livejournal.com]

I'd never heard it before, though the tune is a pretty common folk riff.

[pandoras-closet.livejournal.com]

There's also the version Discovery used at some investor party which is pretty awesome in its own right.

[rosefox]

Never heard it before getting linked to the YouTube video a couple of days ago.

[greenlily.livejournal.com]

I've seen it in folk music books, but never sung it. I went to Audubon Society summer camp, where a song about generically loving earth-related things was not considered politically correct enough. We sang a lot of Bill Staines songs.

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

I wasn't, but I'm surprised by that; I was in Girl Scouts, went to a couple summer-camplike things, and have sung similar songs, though generally the camps I went to had some Evangelical Christian flavor and tended to sing the more explicitly Christian songs.

[querldox.livejournal.com]

Never heard it or of it before the commercial. I thought it might be some sort of African folk song, but didn't go to the trouble of investigating.

[wargoddess.livejournal.com]

I've not seen the advert, but I certainly did sing the song as a child in chorus, not in camp.

>^,^<
.

[dianavilliers.livejournal.com]

Never heard it. Never heard of it before the xkcd strip. I chalked it up to cultural differences.

[micheinnz.livejournal.com]

I knew the tune, as girls would often play it on the piano when we were at camp (which had a central hall for a building, and tents). I never knew the words, though, so thank you.

[chanaleh.livejournal.com]

Put me down in the "never heard it", er, camp. :-)

I read a couple of things about the XKCD strip before saxikath mentioned the Discovery commercial, so I watched that, and THEN looked at the strip. So that was helpful. But then someone else (prior to you) pointed out the camp song, and I was truly enlightened. Still, I never remember hearing (of) it before this week.

[richardf8]

Isn't that vamp (and tune) heart and soul?

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

No, not really, although I think the chord progression would be the same.

[nolly.livejournal.com]

I knew it as a kid, either from camp, Scouts, or both, but I'd forgotten the words, and had to look them up. I'm pretty sure I learned it as "I love the daffodils" rather than "Especially the daffodils", though; that's also the lyrics I found online, and it feels more right to me -- and scans better. :)

[felis-sidus.livejournal.com]

Never heard it before the Discovery Channel add. Wonder if there's an age-related distribution here?

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

I'm not noticing ANY pattern, actually. I figured that Scouts, in general, would be more likely to know it, but I'm not even finding that.

[rebmommy.livejournal.com]

not age-related - I sang the original at Girl Scout camp when I was in grade school.

[msdirector.livejournal.com]

Haven't seen it on the Discovery Channel and have no idea what XKCD is...

But I did sing it in camp many, many, many, MANY years ago... we'd sing it in a "round."

[janetmiles.livejournal.com]

Never sang it in Girl Scout camp; never heard it before I saw it on Discovery channel back in April (on a TV at a store, actually) and was enthralled. Watched it about a billion (okay, that's an exaggeration, probably a hundred or so) times on YouTube. Loved XKCD.

[pekmez.livejournal.com]

I've only seen the xkcd version and was assuming I was missing some melody in my head that everyone else had.

[ceo]

Never sang it at camp; became aware of it via being pointed to the Discovery Channel ad.

That XKCD is awesome, not least because it provides 24 handy usericons. :-)

[bimmer1200.livejournal.com]

I sang it as a Cub Scout/Boy Scout and possibly on a few church camps, but had forgotten completely. I didn't make the connection with the Discovery Channel version until someone pointed out it was a camp song.

[ailsaek.livejournal.com]

I sang it in camp and you have the words wrong.

[(Anonymous)]

Of course, i love that old "camp" song - Boom de ada

[elisem.livejournal.com]

It bugs the bejeebers out of me that they get the last two lines wrong!!

It's

Boom de ada
Boom de ada
Boom de ada
Boom de ay!

That last bit rhymes with "boom de yay.")

signed,
persnickitously yours,
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