When I was a kid, in the 50s, my mother sang to us kids a song with these lyrics:
Don’t have no rain barrel
Don’t have no cellar door
But we’ll be friends
For ever more!
The song must have had some circulation since the 30s (it was used in at least one Warner Brothers cartoon of that era), but has had currency since, because I heard a child in the 1990s sing it.
Does anyone know the title?
I wanna say Cee Cee, Old Playmate. I remember a verse that went
Cee Cee, old playmate,
Come out and play with me
and bring your dollies three
climb up my apple tree
Slide down my rainbarrel
into my cellar door
and we’ll be jolly friends
forever more.
Then your verse that went:
Cee Cee?, old playmate
I’ll come and play with you
I have no dollies 3
I have no apple tree
I have no rainbarrel
I have no cellar door
but I will be your friend
forever more more more!
I’m pretty sure I’ve screwed up the second verse. It was a clapping game in elementary school. I don’t remember the pattern other than on the more more more! you patty-caked the other person.
Edit: I learned this somewhere between 4 and 5th grade so that would have been around 1998-99.
I don’t know the title, but I know the song you’re referring to. When I was a kid (I’m 34 now, so we’re talking the 80’s, here), we had two different versions. One of them, what we considered the “nice” version, went like this:
Cee Cee my playmate,
Come out and play with me.
And bring your dollies three.
Climb up my apple tree.
Slide down my rain barrel
Into my cellar door.
And we’ll be jolly friends
Forevermore
One, two, three, four!
Cee Cee my playmate,
I cannot play with you.
My dolly has the flu
She might throw up on you!
I have no rain barrel
I have no cellar door.
But we’ll be jolly friends
Forevermore
One, two, three, four!
Then we had what we considered the “sick and twisted” short version of the song:
Cee Cee my enemy
Come out and fight with me.
And bring your dragons three
Climb up my poison tree!
Slide down my razor blade
Into my dungeon door.
And we’ll be enemies
Forevermore
One, two, three, four!
Googling “climb up my apple tree” lyrics yielded a version called “Playmate”, which is similar to what I remember. I also found what may be the original song.
Here’s some more info.
I, too, remember singing this with my friends while clapping our hands together in rhythm.
My mother sung this to my brother and me in the 60s and 70s. No doubt she’d sing it to me again if I asked her. However, she sang it
Look down my rainbarrel,
Slide down my cellar door
which makes a lot more sense to me. How do you slide down a rainbarrel?
Sixties acid-folk band Pearls Before Swine recorded a mock-Dylan version of “Playmate” on their first album, and credited it to Saxie Dowell (composer of “Three Little Fishies”).
We had two variations growing up: it was 'Come be my playmate" (who is this Cee Cee?) and “Slide down my rainbow”. It was a metaphor or something.
I think it was called Playmate, and I think I actually have a 45 of it…listened to it a lot as a kid in the 60’s. I’ll check when I get home from work.
I think it was “say say” in my day(late 60s early 70s).
I grew up on Long Island,NY, in the early 60’s, and for us it was
Oh jolly playmate
Come out and play with me
We’ll bring our dollies three
Climb up my apple tree
Slide down my rain barrel
Into my cellar door.
And we’ll be jolly friends
Forevermore
Scribble, your nasty version cracks me up.
I wonder if it’s related to the famous C.C./See See Rider from folk songs.
We sang (Philly suburbs, '80s):
Slide down my rain spout
Into my cellar door
We called the girl Cee Cee, too.
Sandy Stewart from the 1950s “Go, Johnny, Go!”
My versions, in case you’re interested to know, are from central New Jersey.
Hmmmm, I still sing this with my kids (ages 16 and 8), but ours is:
Say, say little playmate
Come out and play with me
And bring your dollies three
Climb up my apple tree
Slide down my rain barrel
Into my cellar door
And we’ll be jolly firends
Forevermore
Hey, hey little playmate
I cannot play with you
My dollies’ got the flu
Boo-hoo boo-hoo boo-hoo
Ain’t got no rain barrel
Ain’t got no cellar door
But we’ll be jolly friends
Forevermore, more, shut the door
Meh. It’s how I learnt it, it’s how my kids know it. Grew up in Tennessee, but I believe I learnt it from my mother, who grew up in Idaho and Michigan.
Our version in 1972 in Wisconsin went
My dollies have the flu
They might barf on you
The rain barrel part and the cellar door were the same, although we had no idea what either of them were.
I found my record of this…with the original paper cover, too…it’s the Mitch Miller version. I’m going to see if I can get it to play on the record player and report back on the lyrics…
I always heard “slide down my rainbow” which made no literal sense, but is the type of glurgey thing that little girls sometimes say, so it fit in figuratively. Now, I wonder if everyone, except me, was really saying “rain barrel.” How does one slide down that?
in the response, it was
“my dollies have the flu,
the mumps and measles, too.
I have no ________
I have no cellar door.
But we will still be friends
Forever more. More. More more more.”
We also had an enemies version.
One think that’s kinda puzzling is that numerous sources indicate Saxie Dowell died in 1974, but the best evidence indicates 1968. Just seems a little odd for that kind of discrepancy for something relatively recent.
Okay, the stupid new-fangled reproduction phonograph won’t let it play all the way to the end…but here are the lyrics on my version…
Oh…Playmates,
Come out and play with me,
and bring your dollies three,
climb up my apple tree.
Look down my rain barrel,
slide down my cellar door,
and we’ll be jolly friends
Forevermore.
(She couldn’t come out and play,
it was a sunny day,
with tearful eye she breathed a sigh
and I could here her say…)
I’m sorry Playmates,
I cannot play with you,
my dollies have the flu,
boo hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo,
Ain’t got no rain barrel,
ain’t got no cellar door,
…
and that’s where the darn Automatic End of the Record Sensor decides it’s the end…