I arose from bed this morning with the song “Do Your Ears Hang Low?” stuck in my head. As I showered, I pondered over the meaning of the lyrics.
Putting aside the question of why you would ever want to tie your ears into a knot, what exactly is the relevance of Continental soldiers to low-hanging ears?
“Can you throw them [i.e., your ears] over your shoulder
Like a Continental soldier?
Do your ears … hang … low?”
I think when I heard this song as a child, I’d always assumed it was a reference to some aspect of Continental soldiers’ military dress (i.e., the uniforms worn by the colonial army in the American Revolution), or to something that the soldiers carried over their shoulder (like a musket).
But now that I think about it, I’m really not sure what the Continental soldiers would have thrown over their shoulders.
(The answer to the more pressing question is, no: my ears do not hang low)
Like at least one or two other “children’s songs,” this one has some, ah, questionably-appropriate origins. It’s originally “do your balls hang low.” Have a look around Google way - some versions are just silly, some are ribald, and some are quite obscene.
I always get a kick out of hearing kids singing this tune - so many of the parents just don’t know what’s happening.
I suppose that doesn’t really answer your question, though. I’m guessing it’s just a cleaned-up version of an old oral-tradition marching-drinking song, like about a million others, and looking for much logic or explanation may be futile.
Right. Growing up near Valley Forge, I always assumed this
"Can you throw them [i.e., your ears] over your shoulder
Like a Continental soldier?
was an allusion to Colonial-era soldiers (esp. those of Geo. Washington’s Continetal Army), who held long muskets over their shoulders (and often swung them around rather dramatically during drills).
This is how I interpret it: Many paintings and drawings of 18th Century Americans depict them with long hair, often worn in a queue. I’ve always assumed that since might have had long hair, a Continental soldier might have been able to toss it over his shoulder. In other words:
Can you throw it over your shoulder
Like a Continental soldier can do with his hair?
Do you have a cite that “balls” was the original lyric? While “balls” fits in well with the other lyrics, the idea of throwing them over one’s shoulder like a Continental soldier is nonsensical. Unlike the depictions of long hair, which could have been thrown over the soldier’s shoulder, I have seen no evidence that these soldiers or any other Colonial were in the habit of slinging their testicles over their shoulders. This leads me to presume that “hair” was the original lyric, and “balls” was substituted later.
I’ve heard the “balls” version sung before, but primarily by twelve-year old boys–I thought it was just a parody (and, oh, what witty parody it seemed in the 6th grade) on the “ears” version. If there’s a cite for “balls” being the original version, though, I’d like to see it.
I’ve been looking at some paintings of the period, and haven’t found anything that can give me a clear answer.
I’m inclined to go with the musket explanation (though I’ve also considered the possibility of long braids, like Johnny L.A. suggests), though I’d like to find a conclusive cite.
The musket theory also has merit – perhaps more than my queue theory. I just thought that since the song was about hair, the song must be referring to the soldiers’ hair. But this also makes sense:
Can you throw it over your shoulder
Like a Continental soldier does with his musket?
No, I have no cite for “balls” being the original version. Shame on me.
In my (possibly very weak) defense, though, I’ve met a few soldiers, and I have a hard time believing that they’d come up with a song about their hair, of all things. Balls would seem much more in character (recall the WWII-era song about Hitler, for example). After days of marching, I can imagine one’s attention would be far more closely focused on one’s bouncing, battered, aching testicles than on one’s hair.
Also, if the original was something as innocent as “hair,” why swap in “ears” for the kiddies?
As for actually slinging one’s testicles over one’s shoulder - well, it’s possible that the original singers engaged in a bit of humorous exaggeration from time to time.
Ahh, yes. Tying your ears in a knot or a bow, though, makes perfect sense.
And when have songs ever made sense? From Camptown Races to the Flying Purple People Eater, I have rarely seen evidence that songwriters/singers have ever strived in any way to exclude nonsense from their works.
We sung the ‘balls’ version in grade school, too. It’s not nonsensical, it’s the whole esence of the song. If your balls hang so low you can sling them over your shoulder, that’s really low. That’s the whole point of the song.
I did a little searching on LordVor’s question about when “balls” began being used as a slang term for testicles. The best I could come up with for a date of origin was “20th century” from an online dictionary.
From what I could find (on UseNet and mudcat.org), Vance Randolph was the first to publish this song, under the title “Do your Balls Hang Low”, in 1941. Randolph said he collected the song from a singer that year, who said he [the singer] learned it around 1920.
More recently, Ed Cray published the text and tune of “Do Your Balls Hang Low”, in ‘The Erotic Muse’, 2nd ed., 1992.