[Gail White]

About the knee-riding songs, I think there were many.
One of the older ones from England goes:

This is the way the ladies ride,
trot, trot, trot, trot,
This is the way the ladies ride,
trot, trot, trot.

This is the way the gentlemen ride,
gallop-a-trot, gallop-a-trot,
This is the way the gentlemen ride,
gallop-a-gallop-a-trot.

This is the way the farmers ride,
hobbledehoy, hobbledehoy,
This is the way the farmers ride,
hobblede-hobbledehoy!
(Of course on this verse the baby is tossed
up in the air.)
the air on this verse.)

[Terese Coe]

Some of these rhymes were an important outlet for anger among children. Spankings, beatings, and the incredible monotony of sitting at a desk most of the schoolday made for an awful lot of repressed childhood anger. Singing these songs was exhilarating, and they were conceived before television, before the concept that it should be unnecessary to physically defend yourself against attacks by other children your own age. If you never learned how fight (girl or boy), you were at a terrible disadvantage and certainly likely to become someone's victim on the way home from school one day.

"Pick on someone your own size!" was a common retort. Confronted with physical intimidation on a regular basis, children were hardly expected to keep their taunts to themselves!

The most common taunt of all was this, and it was always in self-defense:

Sticks and stones will break my bones,
but names will never hurt me!

This was sung to the old tune:

Cheer, cheer, cheer, the school is burning down!
Cheer, cheer, cheer, it's burning to the ground!
Cheer, cheer, cheer, Miss Brice is turning brown!
There'll be a hot time in the old school tonight.

This was chanted rather than sung:

Lizzie Borden took an axe,
gave her mother forty wacks.
When she saw what she had done,
she gave her father forty-one!

Terese

PS. How about the old retort, "It's a free country!" whenever anyone suggested or demanded you adhere to their personal rules.



[This message has been edited by Terese Coe (edited May 10, 2006).]

[Rose Kelleher]

It is the sanctimonious, self-congratulatory attitude of those who imagine they are somehow wiser or better than their forebears which is perhaps saddening

Pbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbtttt.

Acknowledging that some things have changed for the better is not the same as pretending we're inherently wiser or better than our forebears. It may be that for each thing that's changed for the better, some other thing has changed for the worse. But that doesn't change the fact that some things are better.

Or perhaps you think nothing's changed for the better since the good old days, when it was okay to say "nigger" - back when white people's superiority was treated as a given; when unwed pregnant girls were disowned and shunned while the boys who'd gotten them that way were winked at and slapped on the back; when gays and their spouses suffered quietly all their lives in sham marriages; when nobody reported child abuse; when everybody drove around drunk and worked in asbestos-lined buildings with peeling lead paint and locked fire exits.

[Roger Slater]

Rose, I think pbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbtttt is spelled pbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbttt (just three t's, not four), but apart from that, right on!

[MEGAN OXFORD]

Originally posted by Gail White:
In the way of counting or skipping rhymes, we used:

Mary and Johnny, sitting in a tree,
K-I-S-S-I-N-G.
How many kisses did she get?
One, two...

The "children's culture" is probably indeed dying, as video games take the place of the folk rhymes handed down through the ages.

In the way of racial songs, we had one about "the old bald-headed Chinese", which I no longer remember except for the concluding lines:
We buried him deep and he stuck out his feet,
The old bald-headed Chinese.

And this one:
My name is Solomon Levi
And my store's on Salem Street,
That's where you buy your coats and hats
And everything else that's neat.
I've second handed ulsterets*
And overcoats so fine
For all the boys that trade with me
At a hundred-and-forty-nine.
Oh Solomon Levi! Tra la la la la la la....

*God knows what an ulsteret is, but we sang it.

Also we sang the endless verses of "Found a Peanut", which ends with the hapless peanut eater shelling peanuts in hell.

"I know that "old bald-headed chinese" song. Here's how it went---
My mother, she told me to open the door for the old bald-headed chinese. So I opened the door and he fell through the floor, the old bald-headed chinese.
My mother, she told me to give me to give him a drink, the old bald-headed chinese. So I gave him a drink and he swallowed the sink, the old bald-headed chinese.
My mother, she told me to give him some cake, the old bald-headed chinese. So I gave him some cake and he ate up the plate, the old bald-headed chinese.
My mother, she told me to give him a bath, the old bald-headed chinese. ?So I gave him a bath and let out some gas, the old bald-headed chinese?.
My mother, she told me to put him to bed, the old bald-headed chinese. So I put him to bed and he chopped off his head, the old bald-headed chinese.
My mother, she told me to bury him deep, the old bald-headed chinese. So I buried him deep and he stuck up his feet, the old bald-headed chinese.

I never met anyone who knew that song.
Megan

[David Anthony]

Thanks for that, Megan.
It's good to have a record of these obscure and almost-forgotten things.

[David Anthony]

By the way,
I plan to publish a collection of these, sooner or later.
So if anyone has any more I'd be grateful to hear them, either here or by PM.

[Catherine Tufariello]

What a fun subject, and what a great idea, David. Megan, having missed this thread the first time I’m glad you resurrected it. I have a fascinating book called Folklore on the American Land, by Duncan Emrich, that includes some jump-rope rhymes in the section on children’s folklore. They were collected at an elementary school in Washington, D.C. in the 1960s. Here’s a sweet example. It reminds me of "Sumer is icumen in":

Blackbird whistle, woodpecker drum,
"Spring has come, Spring has come."
Cardinal sing in the maple tree,
"Spring is here for you and me."
Longer day and shorter night,
Little boy, bring out your kite.

Emrich includes others I remember from my childhood in Buffalo in the 1970s, like "Ladybug, ladybug, turn around" and a version of the one Alicia quoted way upstream, about Miss Suzie, Tiny Tim, and the lady with the alligator purse. Miss Suzie has longevity! My seven-year-old daughter, who has just gotten into jump-rope games, knows another variant of it in which Tiny Tim floats up in a soap bubble that pops at the end.

[Andrew Frisardi]

How about dumb bathroom humor? I haven't seen any of that on this thread (skimming through), but Jeez, didn't we all like it?

There's that golden oldie:

Beans beans are good for your heart,
Beans beans will make you fart.
The more you eat
The more you fart
The more you fart
The better you feel
So let's eat beans for every meal!


And a playground favorite I remember:

In days of old
When knights were bold
And there were no toilets,
You used to lay a load
Upon the road
And walk away contented.


Anybody else remember some?

[Roger Slater]

Andrew, are you sure the "toilet" one didn't go like so:

In days of old when knights were bold
and toilets were not yet invented,
they'd lay their load upon the road
and walk away contented

That's the way I learned it. Rhyming and metrical!