ESLSongs

Practise adjectives and animals/nature with this song full of similes, Everything at once, by Lenka

The lyrics of this song contain the following 33 adjectives: sly, strong, fast, brave, quiet, big, mean, sharp, deep, dark, sweet, right, long, ugly, pretty, strong, bright, light, hard, grand, warm, silly, cool, scary, hot, cold, old, straight, royal, buzzed, stealth, smooth & pure

The lyrics of this song also contain the following 15 animals & nature-related words: fox, ox, hare, bear, mouse, wolf, toad, whale, sun, tree, sea, fire, ice, bee & tiger

There is a suggestion on how to use this song in your ESL classes below, but for more ideas, click here.

Lyrics

As sly as a fox, as strong as an ox
As fast as a hare, as brave as a bear
As free as a bird, as neat as a word
As quiet as a mouse, as big as a house

All I wanna be
All I wanna be
Oh-oh-oh, all I wanna be is everything

As mean as a wolf, as sharp as a tooth
As deep as a bite, as dark as the night
As sweet as a song, as right as a wrong
As long as a road, as ugly as a toad

As pretty as a picture hanging from a fixture
Strong like a family, strong as I wanna be
Bright as day, as light as play
As hard as nails, as grand as a whale

All I wanna be
Oh-oh-oh, all I wanna be
Oh-oh-oh, all I wanna be is everything

Everything at once
Everything at once
Oh-oh-oh, everything at once

As warm as the sun, as silly as fun
As cool as a tree, as scary as the sea
As hot as fire, cold as ice
Sweet as sugar and everything nice

As old as time, as straight as a line
As royal as a queen, as buzzed as a bee
As stealth as a tiger, smooth as a glider
Pure as a melody, pure as I wanna be

All I wanna be
Oh-oh-oh, all I wanna be
Oh-oh-oh, all I wanna be is everything

Everything at once
Everything at once
Oh-oh-oh, everything at once

Suggested activity: fill the gaps

Download this exercise (PDF)

Look at the adjectives in bold in the lyrics below. Do you know what they all mean?

Now look at the list of nouns: bear, bird, family, fire, fox, hare, ice, line, melody, mouse, night, ox, queen, sea, sugar, sun, tiger, toad, whale & wolf

Which adjectives in the song describe each of the nouns best?
For example: “Ice is cold, and I think that a wolf is scary”

Now listen to the song to check. Fill in the gaps with the noun that you hear.

As sly as a ¹__________, as strong as an ²__________
As fast as a ³__________, as brave as a ⁴__________
As free as a ⁵__________, as neat as a word
As quiet as a ⁶__________, as big as a house

All I want to be
All I want to be
Oh-oh-oh, all I want to be is everything

As mean as a ⁷__________, as sharp as a tooth
As deep as a bite, as dark as the ⁸__________
As sweet as a song, as right as a wrong
As long as a road, as ugly as a ⁹__________

As pretty as a picture hanging from a fixture
Strong like a ¹⁰__________, strong as I want to be
Bright as day, as light as play
As hard as nails, as grand as a ¹¹__________

All I want to be
Oh-oh-oh, all I want to be
Oh-oh-oh, all I want to be is everything

Everything at once
Everything at once
Oh-oh-oh, everything at once

As warm as the ¹²__________, as silly as fun
As cool as a tree, as scary as the ¹³__________
As hot as ¹⁴__________, cold as ¹⁵__________
Sweet as ¹⁶__________ and everything nice

As old as time, as straight as a ¹⁷__________
As royal as a ¹⁸__________, as buzzed as a bee
As stealth as a ¹⁹__________, smooth as a glider
Pure as a ²⁰__________, pure as I want to be

Lenka

Lenka Eden Kripac is an Australian singer-songwriter and actress best known for her song “The Show”, from her debut album, Lenka. “The Show” has been used in numerous advertisements, most notably for Old Navy, as well as the Nickelodeon film Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging and the 2011 film Moneyball. Her song “Everything at Once” was used in a Windows 8 television advertisement and in a Disney Studio All Access commercial. Her fifth studio album, Attune, was released in 2017.