The Song Game: A Game for New Year's and Beyond

Beyond the realm of the old-standard games, such as Monopoly, poker, and a host of others, there is a game that my family came up with when I was a teen. We started playing it on car trips of any length at first. It knows no real limits, though. This game is anytime-anywhere fun and, best of all, there's no mess to clean up. The Song Game is what we call it. This is an incredibly simple game and is loads of endless fun for everyone. Mostly, we play this game as a family but, I've played it with all kinds of kids of various ages and even my severely aged coworkers during downtimes on the sales floor in the retail market. The great thing about this game is that it is always fun because it always incorporates elements of the unexpected as well as elements of familiarity. So, let us not waste any time. I know that you are just itching to know exactly how to play this thing.

Let us say that there are four of us playing this game, Rufus, Lemangallo, you, and me. Great, now, I'll start. I will think of and call out a word... any word. The only thing is that I have to know at least one song with this word in it. For this first one I'll make it an easy one. My word will be 'Love'. Your turn is next. You go way back in the day and say, "Oh, I know! I pick that Love American Style song." That's great but, Rufus reminds you that, for it to count, you have to sing a section of a song using the word that's been picked or say only the exact title of the song. So, you sing it. You stink but, you sing it. Lemangello answers the challenge with, "Loving you is easy 'cause you're beautiful." He stinks at singing his too but, his counts. The rules allow for a player to add a prefix or a suffix. The player may not remove a prefix or a suffix or change one though. Next, it's Rufus' turn at the bat. He has a complete and totally massive brain fart and can't remember a single song with the word love in it. So, everyone laughs at him but, there's really no score keeping in this game and, since its not played for money he laughs too. Someone will inevitably tell him a bunch of songs he missed and everyone will laugh some more. I reveal what my song was, "I love eggs, from my head down to my legs." Commercial jingles count just as well as any other song. They're still songs. My singing was, obviously, flawless and, even tear jerking. If I don't win a Grammy for that performance, even Kanye West is gonna be throwing a fit on my behalf. Moving on, the game simply rotates who gets to lead off with the word choices. You can add a few changes to the rules as you see fit like, a player can't pick word that they know can only be found in one song. Or, you could play a version using phrases instead of single words. You can come up with all sorts of crazy new things. Do what's fun!

Depending upon the group you play with, you'll get an amazing array of songs that will pop up. But, what's really cool about this game is the off topic conversations it is sure to get going. One song causes somebody to remember something. Once they've told it, what they say strikes a chord with someone else and, it just flows from there. This game is a real ice breaker and a relationship builder. Like I said, I've introduced this game to my coworkers in retail sales. To give you an idea of what retail sales relationships are like, just think about this. Once, there was a magazine cover with two men shaking hands. With the left, they each patted the other man's shoulder. With the third, they each concealed a knife behind the back. The times we played the Song Game were the only duplicity free times I'd ever seen among that group.

Feel free to invite friends and enemies. Bring stars and strangers. Rich or poor, it does not matter, we all know music and, a single song can conjure a thousand memories and a multitude of reasons for any size group to get to know one another in any occasion. The Song Game is my pick for your New Year's party. Leave a post. let me know how it went for you.