SONGS & AUDIO
SONGS & AUDIO
I got into using ‘real’ songs with my language students at International House London in 1969, and when the school gave me my first elementary class, I started writing my own for them. IH principal John Haycraft found out what I was doing and invited someone from the company that was then known as Longman, now Pearson Education, to come and talk to me about publishing them. Longman agreed to record and distribute them as a vinyl album and eventually as a cassette.
MAKING THE ALBUMS
I was in a band with my wife Dede and two friends, Michael Klein and Gillian Bartlam, but we had no experience of working in a recording studio. You can find out what happened here.
We eventually recorded three albums for Longman:
- Mister Monday
- Goodbye Rainbow
- Same Time, Same Place.
Some of the songs on Same Time, Same Place were written to accompany Louis Alexander’s Mainline language course series.
At some point, I’m going to try to digitise the songs on all three albums. For the time being, below is a selection of songs from the first two albums, together with lyrics and teaching ideas inspired by the music.
ELT songs
MISTER MONDAY (1971)
Present Continuous Baby
If You Go to Rome
Mister Monday
When You Wake
Going to
Tomorrow Will Be Wonderful
GOODBYE RAINBOW (1974)
The Houses are Built
Nothing Has Changed
He’d Still Be There
Looking Forward to the Day
ADDITIONAL SONGS
A selection of songs from various collaborations and creative projects.
