Silly rhymes your parents told you

Cafe Society
121

Two of the more memorable ones from my great grandmother born who was born in 1902.

Once had a donkey,
Name was Jack.
Put him in a shack
and he peed through the crack.

This one induced much laughter by my brother and I

Three little monkeys laying in the bed.
One rolled over and the other one said,
“Boom, boom, boom, boom, I see your hiney.
Boom, boom, boom, boom, its bright and shiney.
Boom, boom, boom, boom, if you don’t hide it.
Boom, boom, boom, boom, I think I’ll bite it.”
Boom, boom, boom. Yeeeeeoooowww!!!

122

Oh yeah! I had (have) curly hair and my mom would say that first one too me. And I remember the “peas with honey” now that you’ve jogged my memory.

My mom was also a big fan of AA Milne’s poetry and would randomly rattle off lines here and there:

“There changing the guard at Buckingham Palace
Christopher Robin went down with Alice”

“James James Morrison Morrison Weatherby George Dupree took great care of his mother though he was only three” (From memory still - I know too much pointless stuff)
My mom would also do this when I was very young, and then around any little kids she came across (nieces, nephews, etc):
Walksy round the garden
Like a teddy bear.
One step, two step,
Tickley under there

And as she’d to it, she’d trace her finger in a circle on my palm, and then take “steps” with her fingers up my arm and then tickle me under my arm(pit) at the appropriate words.

123

My mother would sing this song to us, but I have no idea if the melody has another name:

I stuck my head in a little skunk’s hole
And the little skunk said, “well, bless my soul!”
Take it out! Take it out!
Reee-move it!"

Well, I didn’t take it out and the little skunk said,
“You had better take it out or you’ll wish you had,
Take it out! pssss, psssss, Take it out! pssss, pssss.”
PEEE-YEW!
I removed it!

My dad would hand out a piece of paper that had this (or something very close) written on it, and ask us to read it out loud:

Lucat bene derede go
Atausen buses inaro
Onojo, demis trux
Summit causen, Summit dux.

Having been brought up hearing/reading Latin in church we would try to render it as if it was Latin. Of course, we’d make a hash of it and he’d correct us by reciting:

Look out, Bennie, there they go!
A thousand buses in a row.
Oh no, Joe, them is trucks
Some with cows and some with ducks.

Has anybody else ever encountered this?

124

One day my grandmother read me this story:Petey was a snake, only sooo big. Petey lived in a pit with his mother. One day Petey was hissing in the pit when his mother said, “Petey, don’t hiss in the pit, go outside the pit to hiss.” So Petey went outside of the pit to hiss.

Petey was hissing all around when he finally leaned over and hissed in the pit. Petey’s mother heard Petey hissing in the pit and said, “Petey, if you must hiss in a pit, go over to Mrs. Pott’s pit to hiss in her pit.”

So Petey went over to Mrs. Pott’s pit to hiss in her pit. Mrs. Pott was not at home, so he hissed in her pit anyway. While Petey was hissing and hissing in Mrs. Pott’s pit, Mrs. Pott came home and found Petey hissing in her pit. She said, “Petey, if you must hiss in a pit, don’t hiss in my pit; go to your own pit and hiss.”

This made Petey very sad, and he cried all the way home.

When Petey got home, his mother saw him crying, and said, “Petey, what’s the matter?” Petey said, “I went over to Mrs. Pott’s to hiss in her pit, but Mrs. Pott was not at home, so I hissed in her pit anyway. Mrs. Pott came home and found me hissing in her pit and said, ‘Petey, if you must hiss in a pit, go to your own pit and hiss. Don’t hiss in my pit.’”

This made Petey’s mother very angry. She said, "Why, that mean old lady. I knew Mrs. Pott when she didn’t have a pit to hiss in."My grandmother was a speech and dramatic arts teacher, and she had no trouble with staying away from the obvious. She told me that she would read this story to her high school classes, and the students were on the edge of their seats, hoping that teacher would make a mistake and say a dirty word, but she never did.

Once she invited the Principal to observe her class, and took the opportunity to read the story. The Principal’s presence heightened the suspense.

125

My mom, when I was taking a bath:

It ain’t gonna rain no more no more
It ain’t gonna rain no more!
How in the heck you gonna wash your neck
If it ain’t gonna rain no more?

Repeat with “How in the fiddle you gonna wash your middle” etc.

My grandpa:
Beans beans beans beans
Beans beans beans beans
The Navy gets the gravy
But the army gets the
Beans beans beans beans
And so on.

My favorite schoolyard one. I’ve seen shorter versions of this in books and online, but I think someone local made up a bunch of it.

*Miss Suzy had a tugboat
The tugboat had a bell
Miss Suzy went to heaven
The tugboat went to

Hello operator,
Please give me number 9
And if you disconnect me
I’ll chop off your

Behind the 'fridgerator
Lay a piece of glass
Miss Suzy sat upon it
And broke her little

Ask me no more questions
I’ll tell you no more lies
The boys are in the bathroom
Zipping up their

Flies are in the city
The bees are in the park
Miss Suzy and her boyfriend
Were kissing in the
D-A-R-K D-A-R-K D-A-R-K dark!

The dark was like a movie
A movie’s like a show
A show is like a TV set
And that is all I know

I know my ma,
I know I know my pa
I know I know my sister
With her 40 acre bra!

My ma was born in London
My pa was born in France
I was born in diapers
And dirty underpants

Hello operator,
Please give me number 10
And if you disconnect me
I’ll sing this song again!
*

126

Peanut sittin’ on a railroad track,
His heart was all aflutter,
'Long came a train, toot, toot,
Peanut butter!

The drunk stumbled out of the tavern,
And down in the sewer he died,
The barkeep renamed the tavern
The Sewer-side!

Oooo it ain’t gonna rain no more, no more,
It ain’t gonna rain no more,
How in the hell can the old folk tell
If it ain’t gonna rain no more?

127

My Mom sang us this one:

As I was walking down the street one dark and gloomy day
I came upon a billboard and much to my dismay
The sign was torn and tattered from the storm the night before
The wind and rain had done it’s work and this it what I saw

Smoke Coca-Cola Cigarettes, chew Wrigley’s Spearmint beer
Ken-L Ration dog food keeps your wife’s complexion clear
Simonize your baby with a Hershey’s candy bar
And Texaco’s the beauty cream that’s used by all the stars

So take your next vacation in a brand new Frigidaire
Learn to play piano in your winter underwear
Doctors say that babies should smoke until they’re three
And people over 65 should bathe in Lipton Tea

128

I remember in High School choir warming up with vocal exercises:
*What a to do to die today
at a minute or two till two.
A thing delightfully hard to say, but harder still to do.
We’ll beat a tattoo, at twenty to two
with a rat-tat-tat- tat-tat-tat- tat-tat-tat tat.
And the dragon will come when he hears the drum
at a minute or two till two today, at a minute or two till two.
*

Or something like that.

129

Another version:
One bright day in the middle of the night
two dead boys got up to fight
back to back they faced each other
drew their swords and shot each other
a deaf policeman heard the noise
and came to kill the two dead boys

130

And their more serious friend, Gladly, the Cross-eyed Bear.

Most of the things my dad said that rhymed were actual songs, and he sang them. The silliest was:

“Oh, the cow kicked Nelly in the belly in the barn.
Oh, the cow kicked Nelly in the belly in the barn.
Oh, the cow kicked Nelly in the belly in the barn.
Didn’t do any good. Didn’t do any harm.”

Second verse,
Same as the first,
Maybe little louder,
Maybe little worse.

Oh, . . . "

Now my grandfather had a couple. I probably won’t be able to remember all of either of them. And the odds of getting the lines in the correct order are small. Let’s see.

"The train is coming, ke-chunk-a-lunk
A mile a minute it has to make.
A big black snake with flaming eyes
That wiggles and waggles along the ties

Sparks are falling, a fiery rain
The tunnel is waiting to swallow the train
Goodbye, goodbye, tomorrow will come again."

There are definitely hunks missing.

"Oh, this is a sorrowful story
Told when the twilight fails
When the monkeys walked together
A’holdin’ each others tails.

(missing bits) forefathers (something)

They went down to the farmlands
To teach the Farmer to play

Then came the terrible Farmer
Nothing of play he knew
(something) our forefathers
And put them to labor, too.

(something something something)
And cut off their beautiful tales
(more sadness)

We never speak to our forefathers
For if the Farmer knew
He would come down to the forest
And put us to labor, too.

Oh, this is a sorrowful story
Told when the twilight fails
When the monkeys walked together
A’holdin’ each others tails."

I’ve tried googling, but only got a link to part of a novel where a character recites the opening verse of the second one.

Ah, but I had better luck today. I guess I needed to add the word “poem”. Grandpa definitely used different phrases, and skipped a few verses, but the original monkey poem had to be by Kipling.

And the train poem was originally a song. Grandpa always lowered his voice to make it sound spooky and sinister. He never used the clickety clack bits.

131

Father, son, holy ghost
Fastest one gets the most!

132

Can I share one in Hindi? I promise I’ll translate.

When I asked for too many stories at bedtime, eventually I would get this:

Ik tha raja ik thi raani
Dono margai, katham kahani

Once there was a king and queen
They both died, end of story.

Of course it rhymes in Hindi - which just goes to show this sort of thing transcends language and culture. :slight_smile:

133

I’ll tell you a story about Mary Morrie,
And now my story’s begun,
I’ll tell you another about her brother,
And now my tale is done.

Snip, snap, snout,
The story’s out.

134

OMFG..My mother used to sing that as well, except she replaced “went” with sh*t, and changed the last line to

“Don’t brush my teeth much any more”…

135

Apple pie without cheese
is like a kiss, without a squeeze.

A lass with a lisp
is sweet to kiss.

136

One tequila
Two tequila
Three tequila
Four!

Five tequila
Six tequila
Seven tequila
FLOOR!

137

Oh, this was a fun read! Here’s some from my family:

My Grandpa would sing this one (I don’t know if it’s to the tune of something else…)

In the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia
Stood a cow on a railroad track
She was a cow with eyes so fine
But you can’t expect a cow to read a railroad sign, oh no!
So she stood in the middle of the track
And the train hit her right in the back!
You will find her horns in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia,
And her tail on a lonesome spine!

Also, my dad would always sing,

Randolph the bo-legged cowboy
Had a very shiny gun
And if you ever saw it
It would make you want to run
All of the other cowboys
Used to laugh and call him names
They never let poor Randolph
Join in any poker games
Then one foggy Christmas Eve
Sheriff came to say
“Randolph, with your gun so bright,
Won’t you shoot my wife tonight?”
Then all the cowboys loved him (etc.)

138

So is that where the Tom Waits song came from, I guess?

139

The version I heard from a singer friend of mine was referred to as the “Native American version”

This land was my land
This land’s not your land
Get off of my land
Go back to your land
This land was my land
This land’s not your land
This land was stole by you from me

A slightly longer version of this was a poem on the wall of one of my middle school art teachers.

The gum chewing student and the cud chewing cow
look quite alike, but they’re different somehow.
And what is the difference?
I see it all now.
It’s the look of intelligence on the face of the cow.

140

Hey that sounds familiar! I used to watch this movie all the time as a kid. I had no idea it was a joke!