- The beginning of “Centerfold” by J. Geils Band, and
- This school yard rhyme: “Tar-zan the monkey man swinging on a rubber band, along came Superman and knocked him in the frying pan.” The most recent version I heard at the school where I work was slightly different, prompting me to say “no, you got it all wrong.” We would follow this by discussing how stories and songs passed down change over generations.
Yep. …
Slight hijack,
Sorry, not familiar with the kid’s ditty you mentioned, but I did want to thank you for the earworm that instantly took me back to a freer more innocent and happier time and lightened my mood this evening.
I now return you to your regularly posted topic
In my neighborhood, it didn’t have a tune; it was more of a chant.
(Also, he fell in a garbage can, and kicked out Superman. No frying pans were involved.)
Umm, I can’t tell if it’s the same tune from just the lyrics…
We never had that schoolyard rhyme, can you link to something that has the tune?
We used to sing “Tarzan, the monkey man, burned his ass in a frying pan.” Very naughty.
Never heard of the Tarzan song before.
The J Geils song does start and end with a melody that sounds like it could be something derived from a kids song, so I looked for youtube videos.
I found one where the first 6 notes (Tarzan the monkey man) sound like the J Geils song:
but all the rest were either chants like this:
or sounded nothing like “Centerfold,” like this:
It makes sense that it would also exist as a chant. I’m sure there are also regional differences. It just happens that the version I learned (East Tennessee, early seventies) has the same tune as what my students were singing (Washington, DC circa 2018). I will note that when I was a kid “frying pan” was sometimes replaced by “doo-doo can.” My students replaced “frying pan” with “garbage can”.
I’m offended.
When I heard a similar chant, about 45 years ago, it was Batman instead of Tarzan, and the tune was the Batman TV show theme. Nothing like Centerfold.