Multicultural & Non-English Songbook

Costume Party

Music and lyrics by Peter Alsop

©1987 Moose School Music (BMI)

This clever song describes the many different costumes we wear (clothing, skin, hair, personal style preferences, etc.), while the activity that follows helps children understand the feelings and emotions we sometimes hide behind our facial "mask" each day. 

Lyrics

COSTUME PARTY                                 (tune E strings to D)


Chorus:

It’s a costume party,                     D(05777x)-A(7x7655),

and everyone is here!                            D-A-D

It’s a costume party, and everyone is here!           D-A, D-A-D

 

You wear a blue dress, you, red sneakers;             A-D

You wear a suit and tie.                                            A-D

You wear flowers, you wear stripes--                       A-D

You put make-up on your eyes!                  E(222300)-A-Asus4-A

 

Chorus

 

You wear brown skin, you wear white,

Your head is clean and bare.

You poked holes through your earlobes;

You’ve got a wart, I bet, somewhere!

Or maybe you dye your hair!?

 

Chorus

 

We may be blind, or we wear glasses.

We st-stutter when we talk.

Sometimes our ears just do not hear

Or we use wheels when we walk!

 

Chorus

 

Our disguises could win prizes-

Each one’s qualified.

But the only thing that really matters

Is who we are inside!

 

Chorus/ Chorus

 

Written by Peter Alsop, ©1987 Moose School Music(BMI)

On Pluggin’ Away, Pie In The Sky & Costume Party DVD - www.peteralsop.com

Teaching tips:

First I teach them the chorus.

Then I get the audience to clap once after we say "costume party" the first time, and twice after we say "and everyone is here!"

Afterward, we talk about how a grumpy face can be a costume.  And how a happy face all the time can be too!  We take paper plates and make a mask for the bottom, then on the other side, we draw a kind of feeling that the outside of the mask could be hiding.  Kids are surprisingly hip to all these kinds of nuances in interpersonal interactions, even when they don't have the words to describe them.  I try to give them useful ways to see why people might hide inside a "costume", (to protect themselves, and then sometimes, even though it might be a kind of protection, it can create another problem, because people don't know you're in there!)  And we all have costumes!

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