sing like a lark—sing gaily and cheerfully:
- Amelia came tripping into the drawing room in a white muslin frock … singing like a lark, and as fresh as a rose.
sing like a nightingale—sing very beautifully:
- Holland comes from a musical family, his father played banjo and his mother sings “like a nightingale.”
Note: Neither expression correlates in meaning with the phrase sing like a canary—(U.S. Underworld) turn informer:
- You don’t think they’d sing like canaries? … If they thought it would help them, they’d tell on their mothers.