I’d Rather be a Bear

Follow along with the lyrics as you listen to the accompaniment with melody guide for I'd Rather be a Bear.

I'd Rather be a Bear is part of the award winning song collection "Blue Skies and Pirates" Click the link to see more about this fun collection for elementary-aged kids, choirs and solo vocal students. The 110-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 include CD (24 tracks)

Audio tracks are available for download or physical CD on this website.

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I’d Rather be a Bear

I had made plans to run some errands, but the day was cold and snowy. As I looked out the window I debated whether or not it was worth venturing out into the cold or if I should wait for a different, and hopefully warmer, day. I wondered if it was an option to avoid the cold completely by staying in my nice, warm house until spring arrived. Hmmm. Bears get to do that!  They go to sleep in the fall when the weather starts to get cold, they sleep all winter, and they wake up in the lovely spring weather. If a bear is awakened from its winter sleep, it might be grumpy and nobody says, “Stop being a grump!” It is just accepted as a characteristic of their personality. Bears also get to eat all summer and get fat – on purpose! And they get to wear a lovely fur coat wherever they go. Seems to me, a bear has a pretty good life! This wintery thought process inspired the song, I’d Rather be a Bear.

The recording process brought another fun element to this song. The sung phrase, “I’d rather be a bear” is echoed by a spoken response. Andy and I had a great time thinking of different ways to do the echoes. We thought about recording multiple tracks and changing our voices each time to create a group response. Then we had a super idea! We had 8-10 musicians lined up to play on the recording to create our band backing tracks. As each instrumental musician came into the studio, we requested that they would say the line, “I’d rather be a bear” so we could record it and add the voices together to create our group of bears. At first, the musicians were hesitant, but once they started adding their “bear voice impersonations” they had a blast trying to make their bear voice sound different than everyone else’s. You can hear the end result in the Donna & Andy performance track for I’d Rather be a Bear. It turned out to be one of our favourite tracks on the Blue Skies and Pirates  CD.