Inspired by this, http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=8614
I would chase my little sister around the house/yard singing “Ohhh the Slithery Dee”. I also on occasion give my own children the same.
What other golden little ditties do you remember, and do you still sing them to your children, or nieces and nephews as the case may be?
I went to YMCA Summer Camp for two weeks at a time for three straight summers in the early 60s. Loved it.
Top of the hit parade during my years there (excerpted lyrics included):
The Titanic
Oh they built the ship Titanic to sail the ocean blue
And the people said that the water couldn’t get through
(Next two lines lost to memory…however I remember the final verse it its entirety)
Oh the captain smiled and winked, as the ship began to sink
And he said “The fish are surely going to stink”
So he SOS’ed the Lord, and he jumped right overboard
It was sad when the great ship went down
(chorus)
It was sad (so sad), it was sad (so sad)
It was sad when the great ship went down (to the bottom of the)
Husbands and wives, little children lost their lives
It was sad when the great ship went down
The Dummy Line
(chorus)
On the dummy line, on the dummy line
Rain or shine I’ll pay my fine
Rain or shine I’ll pay my fine
Ridin’ ridin’ ridin’ on the dummy dummy line
(This was just the framing device for endless verses that were no doubt shared between many songs. The one I remember…and of course we thought we were so naughty when we sang it…)
Two old men dressed in black
Tried to get to heaven in a Cadillac
One tripped, the other fell
Instead of goin’ to heaven they went to WELLLLL, On the dummy line etc.
Underwear
(This was my favorite, and I still remember it in its entirety. It was sung to the tune of the World War I song “Over There”)
Underwear, underwear
How I itch in my woolen underwear
Oh I wish I’d gotten some made of cotton
So I wouldn’t itch the way I do
My B.V.D.'s, they make me sneeze
When the breeze from the trees hits my knees
Oh how they itch me
Oh how they itch me
Oh these gosh darn, gosh darn woolen underwear
Hey!
I taught this one to my kids when they were little (came in handy on long car trips), and I’ll bet they can still sing it today.
The Girl Scout camp one sang at night.
On top of old smokey
All covered in cheese
I lost my poor meatball…? To some strange disease?
I may have got a few words wrong as it is from memory.
[quote=“DChord568, post:2, topic:543026”]
Here’s how I learned it:
Oh, they built the ship Titanic to sail the ocean blue
And they thought they had a ship that the water wouldn’t go thru
It was on her maiden trip when an iceberg hit the ship
It was sad when the great ship went down
Chorus:
Oh it was sad, so sad
It was sad, so sad
It was sad when the great ship went down
To the bottom of the seeeeeeeeea (harmony: Husband and wives, little children lost their lives)
It was sad when the great ship went down.
It was off the English shore
Bout a hundred miles or more
When the rich refused to associate with the poor
So they put them down below where they were the first to go
It was sad when the great ship went down
(chorus)
The captain stood on deck with a teardrop in his eye
To the last lifeboat he waved a sad goodbye
He knew he’d made a slip so he went down with the ship
It was sad when the great ship went down
(chorus)
So they built another ship called the SS Mary Lou
And they painted her with white and they painted her with blue
And they christened her with BEER! and she sunk right off the pier
It was sad when the great ship went down
(chorus, with harmony: Uncles and aunts, little children lost their pants)
It was sad when the great ship went down
GLUB GLUB GLUB!
Another song that I loved from Girl Scout camp:
SUITORS
There are suitors at my door, O le le o bahia
Six or eight or even more, O le le o bahia
And my father wants me wed, O le le o bahia
Or at least that’s what he said, O le le o bahia
CHORUS: O le O la, O le le a bahia
O le O la, O le le a bahia
O le O la, O le le a bahia
O le O la, O le le a bahia
And I told him that I will, O le le o bahia
When the rivers flow uphill, O le le o bahia
Or the fish begin to fly O le le o bahia
Or the day before I die. O le le o bahia
CHORUS
And my father said to me, O le le o bahia
You will wait and you will see, O le le o bahia
What a paradise for two, O le le o bahia
Married life can be for you. O le le o bahia
CHORUS
I got married just today, O le le o bahia
And the rivers run that way, O le le o bahia
And some fish know how to fly, O le le o bahia
So tomorrow I must die. O le le o bahia
I imagine this is one with a million different versions. We did the “rich refused to associate with the poor” verse, but I don’t recognize any of the others…including the “uncles and aunts” variation!
My Girl Guide unit does that too! And we have a version for the day time as well:
Thanks and praise,
For our days,
'Neath the sun, 'neath the stars, 'neath the sky
As we go, this we know, God is nigh
I learned it as:
On top of spaghetti
All covered with cheese
I lost my poor meatball
When somebody sneezed
It rolled off the table
And onto the floor
And then my poor meatball
Rolled straight out the door
It rolled into the garden
And under a bush
And then my poor meatball
Was nothing but mush
I was at a campfire just two weeks ago (I got to lead the singing!), so a lot of songs like these are fresh in my head. And my region is having a big campfire on Saturday to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Guiding. I could post a whole songbook, but I’ll limit myself to one.
To market, to market went my brother Jim
Somebody threw a tomato at him
Now, tomatoes are soft and they don’t hurt the skin
But the one that killed Jimmy was wrapped in a tin
[chorus]
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
And a 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
I looked out my window so early one morn
There was a tramp who was munching the lawn
I said “My good man, if you’re after a snack
The grass is much longer around the back.”
[chorus]
I called on my girls, her name was Miss Brown
She was having a shower and couldn’t come down
I said “Slip on something, you’d better be quick”
She slipped on the soap and, my word, she was quick
[chorus]
Mary the milkmaid was milking the cow
The trouble with Mary, she didn’t know how
The farmer came out and he gave her the sack
So she turned the cow over and poured the milk back
[chorus]
I’m curious to know if the Calomine Lotion Song and the Toilet Bowl Song are regional and only in my area.
I learned:
I’m a juvenile delinquent and I can’t go home no more
I’m a juvenile delinquent no I can’t go home no more
My momma hates me
Can’t go home no more
My Daddy beats me
Can’t go home no more
And then there’s granny–swinging on the outhouse door
Without her nighties
Even though she’s 94–she’s very sexy
And Granpa shoutin’ “More more more, I’m gonna getcha”
Swinging on the outhouse door
The girl scout leaders said we were allowed to sing it but please don’t teach it to the Brownie scouts.
Oh I wish I was a little jar of Mum.
Oh I wish I was a little jar of Mum.
I’d fix up Auntie Nellie so she wouldn’t be so smelly.
Oh I wish I was a little jar of Mum.
As I was walking down the street, one dark and windy day.
I came upon a billboard, and much to my dismay.
The sign was torn and tattered from the rain the night before,
The wind and rain had done its job, for this is what I saw.
Smoke Coca-Cola cigarettes, chew Wrigley’s spearmint beer.
Kennel-Ration dog food keeps your complexion clear.
Sanitize your baby with a Hershey’s candy bar
And Texaco’s the beauty cream that’s used by all the Stars.
Take your next vacation in a brand new Frigidaire
Learn to play the piano in your grandmother’s underwear
Doctors say that babies should smoke till they are three,
And people over 65 should bathe in Lipton tea.
I went to Pokagon Girls’ Camp (overnight camp, stayed a month) when I was about 12, for which a song was specially written, that went something like this (cue tone on kazoo…)
We are the nun, nun, nuns of PGC
There ain’t a damn boy in this nunnery
Every night at nine they bar the doors
I don’t know what the hell I ever came here for!
It was to the tune of a familiar song that I can’t identify, something circa the '40’s, I would guess.
The worms crawl in
The worms crawl out.
The worms play pinochle on your snout.
Your stomach turns a limey green,
Your eyes pop out like whipping cream.
You put them on a slice of bread,
And that’s what you eat when you are dead.
I’ve heard most of these songs (or at least heard of them). But our daughter MilliCal goes off to Girl Scout Camp each year and comes back with a new crop of songs we’d never heard of before.
Like the Moose Song:
http://www.lcsd.k12.wa.us/~wwesterberg/camp/moose_song.htm
Whereas when I was in Boy Scouts one popular camp song was the (no doubt now extremely un-PC) salvation Army:
Little Tommy Tucker,
Sat on a yucca,
He began to cry:
MA!!! PA!!!
Poor little stuck-up guy.
No camp song thread would be complete without John Jacob Jingleheimer Smith!
THe rest of it (that I know) Goes as follows:
The mush was as tasty, as tasty could be,
and early next summer
It grew into a tree.
The tree was all covered
with beautiful moss
and great big old meatballs
In to-mat-o sauce.
So if you eat spaghetti
All covered with cheese,
Hold on to your Meatball
and don’t ever
Ah
ah
AHCOOO!
sneeze!
Another one of my favorites:
I woke up in the morning and spied upon the wall,
The bedbugs and the roaches were having a game of ball,
The score was 19-20, the roaches were ahead,
The bedbugs hit a homerun and knocked me out of bed.
eeny, meeny, meeny, miney, mo Catch a rebel, rebel by his toe
And if he hollers, hollers, hollers, let him go,
Singin’ hey boys, row them, hey boys, row them boats.
It was midnight in the alley, not a trolley car in sight,
I stepped into the drugstore to get myself a bite,
The man behind the counter was a lady, old and gray,
Who used to peddle shoestrings on the road to Mandolay.
eeny, meeny, meeny, miney, mo Catch a rebel, rebel by his toe
And if he hollers, hollers, hollers, let him go,
Singin’ hey boys, row them, hey boys, row them boats.
My Mother was a robber, my Father was a spy,
and I was just the big mouth kid who called the FBI!
I crawled into the sewer and that is where I died
they didn’t call it murder they called it SEWERCIDE!
eeny, meeny, meeny, miney, mo Catch a rebel, rebel by his toe
And if he hollers, hollers, hollers, let him go,
Singin’ hey boys, row them, hey boys, row them boats
One of my all time favorite camp songs:
**“The Desperado”
[Chorus]
Oh the big bad man was a Desperado
From Cripple Creek way out in Coloroado
And he walks around like a squshed tomato
And everywhere he goes he shouts his war-whoop.
There was a Desperado from the wild and wooly west
He went over to Chicago to give the west a rest
He wore a big sombrero and two guns beneath his vest
And everywhere he goes he shouts his war-whoop.
[Chorus]
He went to Coney Island to take in all the sights
To see the hoochie-coochies and the girls dressed up in tights
He got so darn excited that he shot out all the lights
And everywhere he goes he shouts his war-whoop.
[Chorus]
There was a big policeman a walkin’ on his beat
He spied the Desperado, a walkin’ down the street
He grabbed him by the collar and he grabbed him by his seat
And threw him where he couldn’t shout his war-whoop
[Chorus]
**
And how could anyone not mention that old classic, Mounting Dew?