AS WE inch closer to Graduation Day, one of the concerns of graduating students is choosing a song to best remember their school life by. Sometimes, students are caught in a dilemma of picking the right graduation song that the whole batch will like.
When I was in kindergarten (1993), our graduation song was Yesterday’s Dream that was composed by the maestro Ryan Cayabyab. In grade school (1999) we sang The Journey by Lea Salonga. In high school (2003) our classmate Jim Francis Diaz composed a song for our batch entitled, Graduate na Tayo. We also sang Next in Line by After Image, which was given a cool arrangement by our music teacher then, June Rad Butil. In college, our graduation song was Pilgrim’s Theme by Bukas Palad.
Let me give you three things to consider in picking a graduation song.
1. Message of the Song – Usually, songs that are picked as graduation songs have themes like triumph and victory, hope, friendship, brotherhood, or, realities of life. Choose a song that has inspiring lyrics or lines that will help you ponder about the meaning of life.
2. Significance – So you have listed down songs that have good lyrics. Not all of these songs, however, have significance to you as a batch. Does the song mean something to most of the graduating batch? Do you have memories associated with the song? If yes, then that is a good choice. It would be a more meaningful choice. If your batch happen to have good lyricists and musicians, you can write your own song that would certainly be significant for your batch.
3. Popular Choice. In choosing a song, we still have to practice democracy. Have a list of good songs, which you can populate by having your fellow graduating students give their suggestions. Present these songs in an assembly, both lyrics and melody, and let them choose a song by popular vote.
There is a group on Facebook that suggests Champagne Supernova as the Unofficial Graduation Song for 2011. Oh, well, that could be one of your options. Let me share this list of songs I got from a forum:
| Title | Artist |
| Somewhere Over the Rainbow | Katharine McPhee |
| Black Bird | Wendy Woo |
| What a Wonderful World | Ray Charles |
| Waiting on the World to Change | John Mayer |
| Time Is On My Side | Irma Thomas |
| Build Me Up Buttercup | The Foundations |
| Send Me on My Way | Rusted Root |
| Graduation | Vitamin C |
| One Moment in Time | Whitney Houston |
| Closing Time | Semisonic |
| Beautiful Day | U2 |
| I Can See Clearly Now | Jimmy Cliff |
| Time After Time | Cyndi Lauper |
| Breakaway | Kelly Clarkson |
| Goodbye to You | Michelle Branch |
| Don’t Stop Believin’ (Live) | Journey |
| Suddenly I See | KT Tundstall |
| I’m Coming Out | Diana Ross |
| Girls Just Want to Have Fun | Cyndi Lauper |
| We Are Family | Sister Sledge |
| Celebration | Kool And the Gang |
| My Life | Billy Joel |
| Eye of the Tiger | Survivor |
| Free Your Mind | En Vouge |
| All Star | Smashmouth |
| Party Like a Rock Star | Shop Boyz |
| Good Riddance (Time of Your Life) | Green Day |
| Impossible Dream | Frank Sinatra |
| School’s Out | Alice Cooper |
| Movin’ Out (Anthony’s Song) | Billy Joel |
| The Times They Are a Changin’ | Bob Dylan |
| Come So Far (Got So Far to Go) | Queen Latifah, Nikki Blonsky, Zac Efron & Elijah Kelly |
| Wasted On the Way | Crosby, Stills & Nash |
| The Great Escape | Boys Like Girls |
| Hold On Loosely | .38 Special |
| Welcome to the Real World | John Mayer |
| Life Is a Highway | Tom Cochrane |
| I’m so Excited | The Pointer Sisters |
| Bang On the Drum All Day | The Hit Crew |
| Big Girl | Kim Lian |
| Just the Way You Are | Billy Joel |
| Don’t You (Forget About Me) | Simple Minds |
| These Are Days | 10,000 Maniacs |
| Sometimes You Can’t Make It On Your Own | U2 |
Good luck! I wish this helped you in choosing your graduation song.
Credits:
- Info from English Forums
- Photo from Adam Blue Productions
Ariel Lalisan
Ariel Lalisan is a physics teacher at Alabel National Science High School. He is an advocate of constructivism approach in education. He employs active learning and independent learning in his lessons, and, of course, a lot of technology integration. His goal is to produce students who can solve problems on their own using the concepts they learn in the classroom. Ariel Lalisan is a Google Certified Innovator (Google Teachers Academy Southeast Asia 2014) and a community leader at Google Educator Group Sarangani. He is a co-founder of SoCCSKSarGen and he won the Globe Media Excellence Blogger of the Year Award in 2015.
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