Taaa-ra-ra boom-de-ay
They took my clothes away
When I was standing there
They took my underwear
And now I stare at them
They stare at me
And I don’t know what to do
Ba-boo-ba-boo.
Listen, Listen! The cat’s a pissin’
Where, Where? Under the chair!
Hasten, Jason and fetch the basin.
Whoops too late. Bring the mop.
And
The cutest boy (the cutest boy )
I ever saw (I ever saw)
Was sippin’ ci… (was sippin’ ci) -der through a straw
The cutest boy I ever saw… was sippin’ cider through a straw.
I asked him if (I asked him if)
He’d show me how (he’d show me how)
To sip sweet ci… (to sip sweet ci) -der through a straw.
I asked him if he’d show me how… to sip sweet cider through a straw.
So cheek to cheek (so cheek to cheek)
and jowl to jowl (and jowl to jowl)
We sipped sweet ci… (we sipped sweet ci) -der through a straw.
So cheek to cheek and jowl to jowl… we sipped sweet cider through a straw.
And as we sipped (and as we sipped)
the straw did slip (the straw did slip)
and I sipped ci… (and I sipped ci) -der from his lips.
And as we sipped the straw did slip … and I sipped cider from his lips.
That’s how I got (that’s how I got)
My mother-in-law (my mother-in-law)
by sippin’ ci… (by sippin’ ci)-der through a straw.
That’s how I got my mother-in-law… by sippin’ cider through a straw.
Now seventeen kids (now seventeen kids)
All call me “Ma” (All call me “Ma”)
as they sip ci… (as they sip ci)-der through a straw.
Now seventeen kids all call me “Ma”… as they sip cider through a straw.
The moral of (the moral of)
The story is (the story is)
Don’t sip your ci- (don’t sip your ci-) der through a straw.
The moral of the story is… Don’t sip your cider through a straw.
DRINK MILK!
Different versions:
Hasten, Jason, bring the basin!
Whoops, slop, bring the mop.
Listen, listen, cat’s a’pissin’
Where, where? Under the chair!
Quick, get the gun! Aw, shit, she’s done.
How dry I am. How wet I’ll be
If I don’t find the bathroom key.
I found the key. I opened the door.
It was too late. I flooded the floor.
Jingle bells, shotgun shells,
Rabbits all the way.
Oh what fun it is to ride
In a worn out Chevrolet!
Comet, it makes your teeth so clean
Comet, tastes just like Listerine
Comet will make you vomit
So get some Comet and vomit today
Where I grew up it was Lulu who had a steamboat. I always wondered what she was doing sitting down behind the 'frigerator - how’d she get back there, anyway?
And finally,
Hagalena Magalena Oopa Tocka Wocka Tocka Oatin Shoatin Toatin was her name
She had two eyes in her head
One was green and the other was red
Hagalena Magalena Oopa Tocka Wocka Tocka Oatin Shoatin Toatin was her name
She had two teeth in her mough
One went north and the other went south
Hagalena Magalena Oopa Tocka Wocka Tocka Oatin Shoatin Toatin was her name
She had some hair on her back
Some was orange and some was black
Hagalena Magalena Oopa Tocka Wocka Tocka Oatin Shoatin Toatin was her name
…Dark dark dark
Dark is like a movie
A movie’s like a show
A show is like a tv show
And that is all I know
I know my ma
I know I know my pa
I know I know my sister
with the 18 hour bra!
I remember this one, except our version went:
Miss Mary Mack Mack Mack
All dress in black black black
With silver buttons buttons buttons
All down her back back back
She asked her mother mother mother
For fifty cents cents cents
To see the elephants elephants elephants
Jump over the fence fence fence
They jumped so high high high
They reached the sky sky sky
And they never came back back back
'Til the fourth of July-ly ly-ly
Mark me as another for “Ms. Suzie” having the steamboat…
A few other ones:
There’s a place in France
Where the naked ladies dance
there’s a hole in the wall
for the men to see it all
====
To the “Whistling March tune from Bridge over the River Kwai”
Comet!
It makes your mouth turn green.
Comet!
It tastes like gasoline.
Comet!
It makes you vomit!
So eat your Comet, and vomit, todaaaaay!
{repeat}
===
The ants go marching X by X, Hoorah. Hoorah.
The ants go marching X by X, Hoorah. Hoorah.
The ants go marching X by X,
the last one trips and {something rhyming with X}
And they all go marching down…{some more stuff I can’t remember}.
Repeat for X+1.
1 by 1: the last one trips and hurts his thumb.
2 by 2: the last one trips and drops his shoe.
etc.
…and they all go marching down
in the ground
to get out
of the rain, boom boom boom…
But for us it was “the little one stops to suck his thumb” or whatever.
This one was a popular clapping game:
Oh say oh playmate
Come out and play today
Climb up my apple tree
Play with my dollies three
Slide down my rainbow
Into my cellar door
And we’ll be jolly friends
Forever more
I’m sorry playmate
I cannot play today
My dollies have the flu
Boo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo
I have no rainbow
Into my cellar door
But we’ll be jolly friends
Forever more, more, shut the door
Turn out the light and say goodnight.
Does anyone else remember the jumprope game where you would chant H-E-L-P until you tripped, and then you’d have to do the action that went with the letter you tripped on? I think H was highwaters, L was one leg, and P was hot peppers, but I can’t remember what E was.
“Playmate” was by Kay Kyser and his Kollege of Musical Knowledge.
I can only conjure snippets of rhymes…I never much cared for them, yet they still echo full decades after the fact.
(Pickles?) on a stick
make me sick
make my tummy go two forty-six
not beacuse it’s dirty
not because it’s clean
not because he kissed the girl behind the magazine
Hey girls
how 'bout a fight
here comes Johnny with his pants on tight
he can wiggle he can wobble he can do the splits
…
Little Bunny Fufu
Hoppin’ through the forest
ask me no more questions
and tell me no more lies
and if you get hit
with a bucket of shit
be sure to close your eyes
The way my friend Joey sang this was (to the tune of “I’m looking over/ A four-leaf clover”):
**I’m looking over
My dead dog Rover
Who I overlooked before
One leg is broken
The other is lame
I ran him over
With my Coco-Marsh Train
Oh, I’m looking over
My dead dog Rover
Who I overlooked before!**
If you don’t know what Coco-Marsh is, then you didn’t grow up in the 1960s (and maybe not in the great NYC area). It was one of thos chocolate syrups you added to milk to make chocolate milk. The name implies the presence of marshmallows, but I don’t recall any. The advertising, I’ve been told, featured animals riding on a train, hence the line above.
In my childhood, every verse of “The Ants Go Marching” ended
And they all go marching
Down and around and under the ground
And through the rain and down the drain
Boom, boom, boom
To the tune of “Glow Little Glow Worm”
Grow little boobies, bigger, bigger
I wanna have a better figure
I wanna look like Marilyn Monroe
So grow little boobies grow!
On top of a beer can,
all covered with foam
I got too druuuunnnk
and couldn’t get home.
I got in a taxi
the one with the star
it took me to a hoteeeellll
the one with the bars.
If mares eat oats, and does eat oats, and little lambs eat ivy,
and a kid’ll eat ivy too, wouldn’t you?
I like to go swimmin’ with bow legged women,
so I can swim between their legs…
(I’m sure there is more, but that’s all I know of that one)
I don’t care if it rains or freezes,
long as I got my plastic Jesus,
Ridin on the dashboard of my car.
Goin’ 90 it ain’t scary,
long as I got the virgin mary,
ridin on the dashboard of my car.
You can buy a Sweet Madonna
Dressed in rhinestones sitting on a
Pedestal of abalone shell
and on and on and on…
“This is the story of Sally Brown
Who never let one boy down.
Over the hill came Pistol Pete
With fifty pounds of swinging meat.
He laid Sally down in the grass
and stuck his dick right up her ass.
Sally Brown cut a fart
and blew his balls twenty feet apart.
Over the hill went Pistol Pete
With fifty pounds of shredded meat.”
I know a couple of snippets of others (anyone remember the rest?)…
(to the tune of Yankee Doodle Dandy)
“I’m a juvenile delinquent.
I roam the streets from twelve to four.
I drink with sailors and I sleep with bums…”
This one had a whole series of verses but I can only remember one. It was something along the lines of:
“I wish all the ladies were potholes in the road,
I’d be a dumptruck and fill 'em with my load.”
IIRC, There was another verse about “jewels in the sea.”
This one has got to be based on Blood On The Risers, the unofficial official song of the 82nd Airborne Division. It was one of the first songs I ever learned to sing. Why, yes, as a matter of fact, my father was in the habit of pushing 18 year-old kids out of perfectly good airplanes. Why do you ask?
I was in grade school at Fort Bragg back in the early 80s. The 82nd Airborne Choir used to make regular appearances at our school, and that was one of the songs they always performed. While they did change “helluva” to “heckuva”, they sang the verses about the blood and gore unedited, and hammed it up considerably. Never failed to leave an auditorium full of kids rolling on the floor with uncontrollable giggle fits.
I remember this as apples on a stick–however, I imagine pickles would be MUCH worse!
McDoanld’s is my kind of place
Hamburgers in your face
French fries up in your nose
Cokes in your panty hose
At McDonald’s they got choclate shakes
They taste like rattlesnakes
McDonald’s is my
kind
of
place
How 'bout a few to the tune of “My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean”?
My Bonnie lay over the gas tank
The height of its content to see
She lit a small match to assist her
Oh, bring back my Bonnie to me!
Or, a classic:
My Bonnie has tuberculosis,
My Bonnie has one rotten lung,
She spits up her blood in convulsions
And dries it and sells it as gum
Dentyne, Dentyne,
Cinnamon flavor too!
Not to the same tune, but:
Gramma’s in the cellar, lordy don’t you smell 'er,
Baking biscuits on that darn old dirty stove
And the rather is the matter
That keeps dripping in the batter,
And she whistles while the (sniff!) runs down her nose
Here’s my favorite:
Late one morning, In the middle of the night,
Two dead boys started a fight.
Back to back, they faced each other
Pulled out swords and shot each other
A deaf policeman heard the noise
And came and killed the two dead boys
If you don’t believe my story’s true
Ask the blind man; he saw it too.