Jolly Sailors is one of 10 songs from the Donna & Andy CD  "A Jolly Bunch Are We". 

Stream or purchase from many music streaming sites including:

Spotify,   Apple Music,   iTunes,   Amazon,   Pandora,   Deezer.

A Jolly Bunch Are We (Donna & Andy performance and instrumental) tracks (20) are available for download or physical CD on this website.

Jolly Sailors

I like to write sea songs. Jolly Sailors is a jovial glimpse into the life of a sailor. I had fun playing with words that either repeated or that had similar structures such as the captain who is a “jolly jolly soul”, the cook who makes a “yummy, runny stew” with “funny, bumpy lumps” and the tribulations of sleeping in tight quarters with “comfy cosy bunks” where “loud and snorty snores” can be heard throughout the night. On a ship, one must make the best of it as there isn’t anywhere else to go! I wanted to keep the sailors happy with their lot in life and they do decide that “adventure is our job” which sounds pretty exciting. I originally envisioned a brass quintet kind of vibe for this song, but as it went along, it turned out to be more of a jolly “oom pah” kind of sound. As a composer, one of my tasks is to shape a song and sometimes that means changing my preconceived ideas of how it should be and letting the song develop its own path. This was a fun song to write and it is also fun to sing! We included it on our Donna & Andy CD A Jolly Bunch are We (released September 2023) and had the pleasure of including our studio musicians as the sailors working the ropes on the ship with a gusty “heave ho” or two. They really got into the spirit of the task and their exuberant vocalizing is an entertaining part of the recorded track.

You are invited to send us your performance of Jolly Sailors.

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Read Donna's blog post about the making of I Need a Home for my Dinosaur.

Follow along with the lyrics as you listen to the accompaniment with melody guide for I Need a Home for my Dinosaur.

I Need a Home for my Dinosaur is one of 12 songs from the Juno-nominated song collection "Dinosaurs, Dragons and Me" Donna Rhodenizer has written these songs using a variety of styles including a lullaby/tango, bluegrass, blues and pop in a variety of skill levels for singers from ages 5-12+.

Learn more about this fun collection for elementary-aged kids, choirs and solo vocal students. The 122-page book provides the vocal score, full score and separate lyrics pages for 12 songs. Enjoy! 

Please note: audio tracks for the e-book version are sold separately. Print copies of the book include CD (24 tracks)

Dinosaurs, Dragons and Me print book (without CD) is also available on Amazon

Stream or Purchase from many streaming sites including:   Spotify, Apple Music, iTunes, Amazon, Pandora, Deezer.

The Dinosaurs, Dragons and Me  CD (Donna & Andy performance and instrumental) tracks (24) are available for download or physical CD on this website.

15 Cross-curricular activities are provided in the PDF download extending the focus of this song to other subject areas including:

• Fine arts: music, visual art, drama,
• Language arts
• Math
• Social studies
• Science
• Technology

I Need a Home for my Dinosaur

This is the very first song I remember writing for my students to sing. I was in my music room teaching a grade 1 class at the end of the day. They were a bit noisy, and instead of using my voice to ask for quiet, I sat down at the piano and started to play a little “riff”. They stopped talking and started listening. I had their attention, but now what?

Earlier that day, I had walked through the library as a short cut to get to my music room. (We had a connecting door between our rooms. Whose idea was it to put the library next to the music room anyway? But, I digress.) On the shelf was a book entitled, “Home for a Dinosaur”. I didn’t pick it up, I didn’t look at it, and I had no idea what it was about, but it was enough to spark my imagination because I started to add lyrics to the music I was playing for the now raptly listening grade 1s. I sang “I need a home for my dinosaur” and they echoed that back to me. I continued, “I need it right away.” They echoed that as well. Now, many things can be going on simultaneously in the mind of a musician or a composer. As I was playing the piano and waiting for them to echo the phrase I had just sung, I was thinking ahead to find the next line of the song that would make sense. Why would I need to give away my dinosaur? I stalled for time and repeated the first line for the third phrase. By the time we got to the last line of the chorus I had an idea! “My Mom wants to give him away.”

Now I had to figure out why my Mom had it out for my dinosaur. I continued to think, play and feed lines to the students and came up with a dinosaur that is making himself a “persona non grata” within the family by ingesting things that he should not be eating. In addition to corn flakes, he also eats the spoon. He sees Dad’s new slippers and eats them, which would surely cause someone to be irritated. By the time we got to the final verse, I added in the sister who wanted to go play with the dinosaur. Although sometimes it might be tempting to throw an irritating younger sibling into such a scenario and hope for the best/worst, I left the singer with the sentiment that it wasn’t a good idea because they would be in trouble for letting that happen.

This song “arrived” as it did and I didn’t make many changes to it. The rhyming scheme is very simple and might even be labelled as non-existent as I rhymed “away” with “away”. It has lots of repetition in the chorus which is great for young singers even though it was really just a coping mechanism on my part as I searched for the next lyrics. The song worked for my grade 1 students.  I was thrilled to have written the song. The students were happy to sing it, and requested it again when they returned to music class. We used it in a concert at the end of the school year as I recall, although I cannot find a program that lists it in my memorabilia files. I Need a Home for My Dinosaur has remained one of the all-time favourite Donna Rhodenizer songs that young musicians sing. I was delighted when I was asked if it could be included in the Royal Conservatory of Music - Graded Vocal Series. My dinosaur has been in attendance at many vocal lessons, music classrooms, music festivals, school concerts, vocal recitals, and vocal exams around the world. Check out just a few of the video performances below.

I Need a Home for My Dinosaur was joined by Ed the Invisible Dragon a few years later and these two songs became the cornerstones of a song collection that was the start of my journey as a published composer.

Note: Many years later, I returned to my old school and asked the librarian if the book “A Home for a Dinosaur” was still in the library. She found it and gave it to me to keep. It is kept with song notes and good memories of one of my earliest song-writing ventures.

I Need a Home for my Dinosaur is also available from

 - Full Voice Music 

 - Royal Conservatory of Music Voice Series, 2019 Edition: Preparatory Repertoire