Songs to Remember the Presidents

There are many mnemonic devices that we learn in school or make up to learn various difficult/tedious factoids – especially in history. One of those that plague many people is the list of US Presidents. Many of you, I am sure, have seen the Animaniacs Presidents song – which I am including below in case you have not… Here are the lyrics.

..but I’m willing to bet many of you have not heard these two presidential songs. Both of these are by Jonathan Coulton and I wouldn’t have heard of these songs, except that my fiancé is a fan of Coulton’s, and a lot of his stuff has grown on me – especially a couple of history songs.

First up, this one is called WashyAdJeffy. It is a real mnemonic device to remember the presidents. The idea is that you will learn not only the names of the presidents but also the number of terms for each. The number of syllables used for each name is the number of terms they served. Pretty cool. It only goes up to G. W. Bush as that was who was president at the time the song was written. Here are the lyrics.

The second song, also by Coulton, gives you a little tidbit about each of the presidents as well as naming them in order. This one is appropriately called, The Presidents. Its lyrics have changed slightly since it was first recorded and is performed with a variety of lyrics at live shows to include things that have happened since it was recorded (which was during G.W. Bush’s presidency). Here is one set of lyrics.

Hope you got a little chuckle out of these and maybe learned something from them. I will have the WashyAdJeffy song stuck in my head for the rest of the day now.

 

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