My ears are smiling from the songs people have shared here. Thank you all.
Please don't feel like the time frame needs to be rigidly followed when you're making song suggestions. Awesome music from the 1970s will be enjoyed just as much as if it were from the 60s. No one is going to look up a song's year of release when we perform it, or have their experience lessened if it's from a later year.
We do try to perform songs from the 1920s to the 1960s because studies on music therapy have shown that songs from someone's mid-childhood through early adulthood tend to evoke the most pleasant memories. Many of the residents were still relatively young in the 70s, 80s, and even in the 90s and have special memories attached to songs from those eras as well. The last time we were at a nursing home we took requests, and one was for
Kyrie which is from the mid-80s. I happened to already know the song because I performed it with my church a couple of years ago. It was really a lovely experience to sing it for her. Her granddaughter is named Kyrie.
If you're unfamiliar with that song here's the
cover we performed of it after our Easter services at the Hollywood Bowl. It was sort of spontaneous because the actual service had already ended and people were saying goodbye to one another. It was just incredibly fun. Singing it again for this sweet lady brought back wonderful memories for both of us.
