Campfire Songs

A cicada symphony serenades away as we sway aloft in our hammocks, a secluded hideout in the forest can hold the most breathtaking back and forth, a startlingly fresh call and response with staccato avian trills, legato amphibian croaks, percussive woodpecker para diddles played out in glorious cacophonous, playful, mysterious, purposeful unity. Stopping to appreciate the sounds of nature, silencing our own rustling disturbances to lull the wild into accepting our presence and going about its noisy business can be a joyous auditory banquet. As a musician and music lover and a nature lover, I find myself stopping to hear the roses as much as to smell them.

That said, we have as much right to cause a ruckus as the next bugs. So if you're heading out to the woods this weekend and are looking for some songs to sling across the lob lolly and up the mountain, then allow me to provide a quick list of some fun tunes that you can sing around your campfire.

Top 5 Beginner Campfire Songs: 

This Land Is Your Land - Woody Guthrie
Nancy Summer Wine - Sinatra & Lee Hazelwood
Island In The Sun - Weezer
What I Got - Sublime
Blowin in the Wind - Bob Dylan

I picked these songs for this first installment of my Campfire Songs post, because they are all remarkably simple and enjoyable tunes. For instance, "This Land is Your Land" is simply D G D A7 D, repeat. A great song for a beginner or a song that you could teach a buddy to play in a snap. I included "Summer Wine" because this song is a really fun duet that will give you the chance to get two voices working together, and again, very straightforward and simple, Am G then Dm Am, all the way through. Same simplicity principle with "What I Got," D G, and "Blowin in the Wind," G C D. Pass the guitar around, it's only three chords, let everyone give it a shot!

Or you could just pluck away randomly on the guitar to the tempo of the crickets, while someone taps randomly on a hand drum, nothing wrong with a good old impromptu jam session! I do highly recommend if you take your guitar in the woods, take along a pen and paper as well, because there's nothing finer than taking inspiration from nature. Below, I'm sharing a video of a song I wrote called "Willow," obviously a lot of elements of nature and imagery of the willow tree in it. Hope you like it!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYO_m8E-s2o

So when you head out this weekend, whether you're going up to Cohutta National Forest, or sitting around a bonfire in your backyard, don't forget your guitar! Have fun! Thanks for reading and thanks for listening!



Zel Ascend - How It's Meant to Be album
Zel Ascend - Bearing Feelers and Mouthparts album