# Beat Me Daddy

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beat-me-daddy/927493>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Tags:** music\
**Created:** [December 7, 2020, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beat-me-daddy/927493 "2020-12-07T17:52:41Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![mixdenny](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mixdenny/32/2962_2.png) [@mixdenny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mixdenny)\
**Post date:** [December 7, 2020, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beat-me-daddy/927493/1 "2020-12-07T17:52:41Z")

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…With a Wooden Broom".

Background: My father played the clarinet and was 20 years old in 1945. I was born in 1947. I heard him play a few times at home and he seemed to like a jazzy style. I heard him sing/say the title a few times while he beat out a fast rhythm with his fingers on a tabletop or whatever. “Beat me daddy with a wooden broom!”

Of course it is a riff on “Beat me daddy - eight to the bar” but I can’t find any mention of his version. I thought perhaps it might have been a popular college thing among the hep cats at Ohio Northern University. What do you think - just a goofy thing he made up?

He like to joke like that. I remember him and mom coming home from a party when I was young. I asked them, “What did you do at the party?” He replied, “We played ‘who goosed the moose’” at which point my mom slapped him on the shoulder and exclaimed, “HARRY!”

Ah, those crazy kids.

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**Author:** ![Hatchie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hatchie/32/3983_2.png) [@Hatchie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hatchie)\
**Post date:** [December 8, 2020, 6:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beat-me-daddy/927493/2 "2020-12-08T06:11:10Z")

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Looks like Daddy was doing a variation of “Kiss the Boys Goodbye”, sung by Mary Martin in the film of the same name. Some lyrics:

Oh, Daddy, let me stay out late,  
Can’t the baby kinda celebrate?  
Beat me, Daddy, with an old whisk broom-  
Kiss the boys goodbye.  
Oh, Daddy, let me wear the mink-  
I don’t know the words, but I think  
We’ll stick around and go to town-  
Kiss the boys goodbye.

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**Author:** ![mixdenny](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mixdenny/32/2962_2.png) [@mixdenny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mixdenny)\
**Post date:** [December 8, 2020, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beat-me-daddy/927493/3 "2020-12-08T16:18:25Z")

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Nice! That has to be it and I mixed up the words just a bit. Thanks.