Best Campfire Songs to Sing at Summer Camp

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Fair warning: this episode contains terrible renditions of some genuinely great songs. The audio quality of the singing is not the point. The point is the songs themselves, and why campfire songs are one of those things about summer camp that lodge in your brain permanently and never leave.

Why Campfire Songs Are Actually Important

This sounds like a flippant topic until you realise that campfire songs are one of the most consistent pieces of institutional memory at any summer camp. Kids who attended the same camp ten or twenty years apart will know the same songs. The songs are part of the identity of the place in a way that very little else is.

As a counsellor — and especially as a British one who had never encountered this tradition before — learning the camp songs is one of the fastest ways to integrate. Knowing the words signals that you’re part of the community. Not knowing them signals that you’re new. The process of learning them is, weirdly, part of how camp gets under your skin.

The Classics

Most camps have a mix of their own original songs and versions of widely known campfire classics. The originals will be camp-specific and you’ll pick them up by osmosis. But the classics tend to appear at most camps in some form:

Kumbaya — Perhaps the most famous campfire song in the world and justifiably mocked at this point, but still somehow gets sung. Usually early in a session before anyone’s feeling self-conscious.

This Little Light of Mine — Genuinely joyful, works well with kids of all ages, hard to sing badly enough for it not to work.

Down by the Bay — Call-and-response format that kids love because it’s inherently silly and you can make up verses on the spot. A counsellor favourite.

I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles) — Not a traditional campfire song by any stretch, but The Proclaimers have somehow become campfire canon. Andrew can confirm this one appears.

Camp-specific songs — Every camp has them. Some are beautiful. Some are aggressively catchy in the way that only children’s songs can be, meaning you’ll be humming them in a supermarket in England six years later and not being able to explain why.

The Campfire Itself

The songs are only part of it. The actual campfire — particularly if you’re running it as an Outdoor Living Specialist like Andrew was — is an experience in itself. Building a proper campfire that stays lit, produces minimal smoke, and doesn’t accidentally set anything else on fire is a genuine skill. The kids watching you do it don’t know that. To them you’re basically a wizard.

S’mores are mandatory. If you don’t know what a s’more is: graham cracker, toasted marshmallow, square of chocolate. You press it together. It is not a complicated concept but it is a disproportionately good food item and American children take it very seriously.

Read my hilarious, touching diaries from volunteering at a summer camp here:

Book 1: There’s No Place Like Summer Camp Book 2: Camp America: Second Summer Shenanigans