Choosing the Set Song

One of the biggest struggles every year is trying to choose the set song for the Challenge. This year's discussion started around March/April, with last year's 'Try Everything' and 'This is Me' still revolving round our brains, it was not an easy task. The discussions,ideas, thoughts, stretched on and on, summer came and different radio stations were played (sorry Ali), journeys in the car interrupted by I wonder if that would work, we even started to watch Cbeebies. Every now and then we would find a song and it would sit with us for days and we would listen to it time and time again, find different versions and then press the delete button.

Quite often we'd play a song that we thought would be ideal and then we'd find that the words were just not suitable for primary school children - there are some good songs out there but the sweary bits don't work for us.. We also try to set personal preferences aside, easier said than done. Once we had an idea we'd float it a bit more to hear what other people thought – that led to interesting discussions and comments such as 'you must be joking' arise. We also have had suggestions, clips and youtube videos sent to us which we duly plough through. For some reason, this year proved to be a particularly difficult year as we seemed to discard song after song.

So what do we look for a song? Firstly and most importantly will the children enjoy singing it and secondly is it song that is suitable musically for children’s voices. We are also looking for a song that will be challenging in its own way, which has some variety to it, is contemporary, is inclusive, has a positive message and fits with the theme. Yes, for the first time a theme.

Why? The theme chosen reflects the thinking behind Glee and will help to pull all the heats and finals together. Our aim is to promote the message of the power of song and dance to children’s learning and development and bring the energy of music back to schools and the classroom. This is the first time we’ve used a theme so we have kept the theme and the interpretation of the theme quite wide. The theme is 'Life, Journeys and Dreams' so all songs must fit with the theme.

The choice of the second song sits with the school, the only requirement is that it fits with the theme but the choice is wide.

For example you could have:

For titles - “The Story of My Life”, “Day Dream Believer” Walking on Sunshine” “Spice Up Your Life”

For lyrics - “Proud Mary”, ”Nelly the Elephant”, “Fight Song”, “Hung Up on you”,

For artists- “Train”, “D-Ream”, “30 Seconds to Mars”, “Destiny’s Child” for artists;

For general feel of the song -“Shine”, “I Feel Good”, “Roar” “Happy”, “I’m a Believer”,

So as you can see there are endless possibilities.

And. The Set Song for the sectionals is

‘The Greatest’ by Sia ft Kendrick Lamar

We really do hope you like it