So at camp, we’ve been singing this song– Brother, Friend– for years now. I wanna say 2002 was the first summer, but I could be totally wrong. And this other song, Lean On Me, has been around much, much longer.
So this past summer, as a song leader, I had to choose what songs we’d be singing and I always wanted to do both of these songs individually, just because they’re fun and about friendship and loving each other. So I wondered… “What if I combined them into one mega-song about friendship?” And then my brain continued down the guinea pig trail– “What if you added verses from other songs about friendship? What if you made one huge, mega, awesome song called “The Friend Song”?” Something along those lines.
So each week of Day Camp, I would add a new verse, often getting input from counselors what song to add that week. Over the summer it grew into this monstrous thing that took about ten minutes to sing maybe twice! But it was always fun, even when I messed up or got verses out of order. It was silly, it was sweet, and it allowed the kids to do song motions with each other and act goofy with their new camp friends. So, mission accomplished.
And I decided, since I wouldn’t be at camp this summer to make sure it stuck around, I decided to commemorate the song and the summer with this video. Enjoy!