Bobby's First Sunday Pub Sing

06/13/2026

As this sing continues to grow, I want to talk about “hey, how do I do this, anyway?” Especially when maybe the last time many people sang in public as part of unaccompanied group was maybe at a campfire, or back in elementary school sometime.

One part of how we do this is certainly the repertoire. There are tons of songs out there that have passed the test of time, and Just Plain Work when sung - but a lot of people don’t know these songs anymore.

So how does one find all these songs? And how do you go about learning them? That’s what I’d like to help everyone answer in the next month or two. So stay tuned!

For now, let me just say that the simplest answer, and the best, that I’ve found is one song at a time. Here are the steps:

1. Find a song that you like
2. Make sure it works for a group of people that would love to join in and sing with you
3. Keep singing that song over and over and over again, - in the car, in the shower, while you’re doing dishes - until you can easily sing it by memory.
4. Congratulations! You now have The One Song that you can lead!
5. Keep leading it! You might mess it up a couple of times in front of a group, but don’t worry. It’s your song now. It’ll come back to you.

I’ll keep on coming back to this idea, along with other thoughts and tips that I’ve found helpful. For now, may I present… (drumroll please) my very first song that I learned well enough to lead! It’s a sea shanty of sorts that I first came across as covered by the Pogues*, so now you might also have a new group to check out, if you haven’t heard of them already.

For those of you reading along who have also been doing this for a while, what was your first song that you knew well enough to lead? Let me know in the comments, and we’ll get a whole playlist together, how about?

Provided to YouTube by RhinoGreenland Whale Fisheries · The Pogue...

05/21/2026

You saw it here first!

(yeah, there will also be an official event posted with invites and all, but I wanted to give this group a little love beforehand)

04/07/2026

Sing! Sing sing, sing sing sing. Singgg?

Sing, singety sing sing

SING

02/19/2026

Hi all! Just wanted to do a little plug for the University of Chicago Folk Festival coming up! A bunch of us will be leading the Sea Shanty workshop from 2 -3:30, and there will be other singing opportunities as well.

And of course, some pretty fine music at Friday and Saturday's concerts. If you're there, make sure to say hi!

02/01/2026

Hey, it’s the fabulous Bobby’s Pub Sing Cheat Sheet!

The choruses of most of the songs we sing are actually quite easy to learn, given a couple of repetitions, anyway. That’s what makes them good pub songs, right? But for people new to the tradition, the sheer amount of new material coming at you can be overwhelming, and some brains work much better when there are printed words to start from.

Hence this cheat sheet!

This is obviously (obviously obviously) a teeny fraction of the songs that are out there. It’s really just an assortment of songs I know pretty well, plus a few that I’d like to learn better, that can serve as a core repertoire as our group gets rolling.

Any other songs that you’d like to see here? Let me know, and I’ll get them added?

Pub Sing Cheat Sheet Let Union Be Gather friends and let’s be jolly Drive away dull melancholy For to grieve it would be folly When we're all together Chorus: Let union be in all our hearts Let all our hearts be joined as one We'll end the day as we've begun We'll end it all in pleasure Right ...

01/18/2026

The next sing approaches!

11/10/2025

“The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
Of the big lake, they called Gitche Gumee
The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead
When the skies of November turn gloomy
I’m not giving you up, not letting you down
Never gonna run around and desert you
Nor make you cry, nor say goodbye
Nor tell a lie and hurt you."

11/09/2025

Greetings everyone, and welcome to the official page of our (hopefully) ongoing event!

If you've gotten an invite to like this page, chances are that you either

- Were at our inaugural sing in November, or

- Live in the Chicago area and at least have a vague concept of what a pub sing is.

In either case, welcome! Next sing is on December 7 - waiting to get an exact confirmation for the time, but it's likely to be the same 6 - 8 evening slot.

Look for a post in the next several days, along with more descriptions of what a pub sing actually is, so you can more readily share it with hundreds and hundreds of your friends so that we can pack the bar to the rafters! (though a turnout of 15-25 people would be Quite Acceptable as well)