Does it matter if a random group of people no longer know the same songs?

There used to be a body of traditional songs that “everybody” knew—the sort of songs you might have sung on the day camp bus when you were a kid. The tunes were familiar, the words might have varied a little from place to place, but most people would recognize them and could sing along.

The sort of songs the audience might join in when the Boston Pops held a sing-along. The sort of songs the band might play at a small-town public event.

The sort of songs you might strike up if you were unexpectedly detained for a long night on a train or locked down somewhere.

Do we even have any songs like that any more? Do young people know any of the old songs? Do older people know the new tunes? Are they even singable by ordinary people?

What would we all sing if we were on a hijacked bus or rounded up in a camp awaiting an unknown fate? What would we sing to keep our spirits up if all hell broke loose and we were sheltering with a mixed group of neighbors? What would we sing if we were herded onto an open-topped conveyance in the rain?

Quote by Anne Lamott in Bird by Bird:

Writing and reading decrease our sense of isolation. They deepen and widen and expand our sense of life: they feed the soul. When writers make us shake our heads with the exactness of their prose and their truths, and even make us laugh about ourselves or life, our buoyancy is restored. We are given a shot at dancing with, or at least clapping along with, the absurdity of life, instead of being squashed by it over and over again. It’s like singing on a boat during a terrible storm at sea. You can’t stop the raging storm, but singing can change the hearts and spirits of the people who are together on that ship.