Three Songs from the Early Señor Wooly Albums

Here are three songs from my first two albums that never received music videos.

To be clear, these aren't necessarily songs I recommend using in the classroom. In fact, there's a part of me that would love to quietly remove them from the internet and pretend they never existed.

But I also think they're interesting little historical artifacts. They offer a glimpse into how my approach to writing music for Spanish learners has changed over the years.

La Salvavidas

From Billy la Bufanda y Amigos

This is a song about a boy who falls in love with a lifeguard. It was heavily inspired by The Sandlot, a movie I've watched far more times than I'd like to admit.

I think the song is still pretty catchy, but it hasn't aged particularly well. For one thing, it's written from the perspective of a 13-year-old boy, yet sung by a middle-aged Spanish teacher. Back then, I sang everything because there wasn't anyone else to do it. These days, we cast singers and actors based on what the story needs.

Plus, there's not much of an actual story. It's more of a character sketch than a narrative with conflict or a payoff. To be clear, there's nothing necessarily wrong with a character sketch. Guapo is a character sketch! But hopefully we're offering something beyond, "I think the lifeguard is pretty."

Listen to La Salvavidas

Karaoke version

Download lyrics and cloze activities

Odio la clase de español

From Billy la Bufanda Presenta Más Amigos

This is a song about a student who hates Spanish class.

And I genuinely consider it one of the worst things I've ever made. Seriously, the temptation to delete this song from the blog right now, as I'm typing this sentence, is overwhelming.

I suppose the idea of writing a song about hating Spanish class seemed funny at the time. Looking back, I'm not sure what I was thinking.

But in the interest of preserving history, here it is.

Listen to Odio la clase de español

Karaoke version

Download lyrics and cloze activities

¿Dónde queda el museo?

From Billy la Bufanda y Amigos

This one is a rhythmic song designed to teach prepositional phrases. And I think this song is still totally a bop!

But it also represents an approach to teaching Spanish that I've largely moved away from.

Early in my career, I believed that taking useful Spanish vocabulary or grammar and putting it to a catchy beat was enough to make an effective educational song.

Over time, my thinking changed. I came to believe that language is much more memorable when it's part of a compelling story. Rather than writing a song to teach a particular grammar concept, I wanted to write stories that students would actually care about, with the language serving those stories.

That's a big part of why Señor Wooly looks so different today. I've written more about that philosophy in Why We Teach Spanish Through Stories, Not Vocabulary Lists.

Listen to ¿Dónde queda el museo?

Karaoke version

One interesting footnote: Sra. McPeak actually created her own video for this song, which you can watch below.

Download Spanish and English lyrics

And despite everything I've just said, I still have a soft spot for this song. In fact, I even snuck a reference to ¿Dónde queda el museo? into my 2020 music video Vibra viral.

Looking back

I don't have plans to revisit these songs or create official music videos for them. And they're not songs I would particularly recommend for classroom use today.

But they're part of the history of Señor Wooly, and I think there's some value in keeping them around.

If nothing else, they're a reminder that creative work is a process. You make things, you learn from them, and hopefully you get better.

And occasionally, you make Odio la clase de español.