We Will Care

You may recognize this type of groove as one that is often heard in contemporary pop songs. It's probably familiar to your students as well, except instead of having a song topic that is inappropriate for kids (as most pop tunes are), it has a topic that they can and should be singing about. Earth Day falls in April every year on the 22nd of the month, but truly, an awareness of our one and only home is something to think about every day, not just once a year. Even so, that one day is a good way to remind us all of our responsibility to take good care of our planet. After all, like the song says, "If we don't care, who's gonna care?"

If your school celebrates Earth Day, this song would be an excellent extension of your activities. Be sure to let the classroom teachers know you have this at the ready in case there is an opportunity for cross curricular studies. (FYI, we have a number of other decent tunes you could also use for Earth Day. Check out your printed Music K-8 Song Index – the one you got with your first issue this year – or go to MusicK8.com and search the online Index. You can hear excerpts there, too.)

While the song "We Will Care" could be performed as a unison piece, we have added an optional second part which is a bit more challenging and gives it a more sophisticated sound when incorporated. Choose a select group of students to sing this part, perhaps inviting older students or even other teachers to help out if you wish. To help learn the second part, we have isolated it and put it on our web site for free access. (See details in the box on page 66.)

While mixing this tune, it struck us that as much as we enjoy the arrangement and the instrumental tracks on the Performance/Accompaniment recording, it would probably sound very cool to play it live with a bunch of acoustic guitars. You would most likely need mature players who are able to strum the chords we have indicated on the piano/vocal score, but we're betting you can come up with friends, family, or older students who could do it. The strum pattern is indicated on the music, and when done with multiple players (in our case, we added a 12-string guitar to the mix, too), it would sound just wonderful.