What songs did you sing at summer camp?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I was just talking to our accounting clerk, who is from the former East Germany, and somehow we got on the topic of camp songs. The first one (she now thinks I am completely bonkers) that popped into my mind was “The Billboard Song”:

*As I was walking down the street one dark and dreary day,
I came upon a billboard, and much to my dismay,
The sign was torn and tattered from a storm the night before,
The wind and rain had done their job, and this is what I saw:

“Smoke Coca-Cola cigarettes, drink Wrigley’s Spearmint Beer,
Ken-l-Ration dogfood keeps your complexion clear,
Simonize your baby with a Hershey candy bar,
And Texaco’s the beauty cream that’s used by all the stars.*

(There are more verses, but I won’t torture you further.)

And then, also from my Jewish Community Center day camp, one that’s really a chant rather than a song:

Give a yell, give a yell, give a supersonic yell,
And when we yell, we yell, we yell like hell,
And this is what we yell:

[then a verse I can’t quite remember]

Easy, Eye-zie, Jacob, Sam,
We’re the guys that eat no ham,
Matza, matza is our cry,
Matza, matza ‘till we die…

[more half remembered nonsense syllables]

Anyone else want to share?

2

The Lollipop Song

L-O-double L-I-P-O-P spells lollipop
It’s the only decent kind of candy
Man who made it must’ve been a dandy
L-O-double L-I-P-O-P you see
Just to lick upon a stick
Guaranteed to make you sick
That’s a lollipop to me

3

Announcements, announcements, annouuuuuuuuuuuunce-ments
A horrible death to die, ahorrible death to die
A horrible death, to be talked to death
A horrible death to die
Announcements, announcements , annouuuuuuncements

4

luluBahrain, do you remember any of the verses to the Annoucements Song? I remember that there were some, but I can’t remember any of them.

The ones I remember were the classic

The other day
I saw a bear
up in those woods
o way up there

And the Shaving Cream song.

5

I was british. We never had summer camps and proms and stuff. In the summer we hung around in streets making old people nervous.

6

Well, I’m suspecting (and hoping) these suckers are all in the public domain, but curse you for bring up the bear song! (We always did it as a call-and-response, counselors first, then campers.)

The other day
I saw a bear
A great, big bear
A way up there (2x)

He said to me
“Why don’t you run?
I see you ain’t
Got any gun.” (2x)

And so I ran
Away from there
But right behind
Me was that bear (you get the picture)

But up ahead
There was a tree
A great, big tree
Oh, glory be!

[then there are a couple of verses dealing with the bear catching up, and the guy seeing a tree branch that might save him from a non-climbing bear, etc. but I can’t remember them]

And so I jumped
Into the air
But I missed that branch
A way up there

Now don’t you fret
And don’t you frown
‘Cause I caught that branch
On the way back down

That’s all there is
There ain’t no more
Unless I meet
That bear once more

What’s the Shaving Cream song?

7

What about the old lady who swallowed a fly?

I know an old lady
Who swallowed a fly
I don’t know why
She swallowed a fly
Perhaps she’ll die.

I know an old lady
Who swallowed a spider
That wiggled, and jiggled,
And tickled inside her.
She swallowed the spider to catch the fly
I don’t know why she swallowed a fly
Perhaps she’ll die.

I know an old lady
Who swallowed a bird
How absurd!
To swallow a bird.
She swallowed the bird
To catch the spider
That wiggled, and jiggled,
And tickled inside her.
She swallowed the spider
To catch the fly
I don’t know why she swallowed a fly
Perhaps she’ll die

[and on up the food chain]

I once spent an entire evening teaching a dormful of drunken Russian college students this song - they thought it was hilarious!

Can we tell it’s Friday afternoon, it’s quiet at work for the first time in living memory, and my synapses are no longer firing?

8

I went to choir camp, what didn’t we sing?

Though we did have a few of our own that we sung, such as this one:

Mary had a steambost, the steambout had a bell, Mary went to heaven and the steamboat went to Hello operator, connect me to number 9
and if you disconnect me, I’ll kick you in behind the yellow curtain, there lay a shard of glass, Mary sat upon it and the shard went up her Ask me no more questions, tell me no more lies, the boys are in the bathroom, zipping up their Flies are in the kitchen, dogs are in the park, Miss Mary and the principal are kissing in the D-A-R-K D-A-R-K D-A-R-K dark!

I’ve heard there’s more, but I don’t know the rest.

(Hmmm, no Russians here, but I could go down to the bar sometime and teach it to a bunch of drunken (and not so drunk) college students. Man I’m bored.)

9

I hate to tell you, Jayn, but that one isn’t just yours; we sang a different version. But here’s a similar one:

There once was a farmer
Who took a young miss
In back of a barn, where
He gave her a ……

Lecture, on horses and
Chickens and eggs,
And told her that she had
Such beautiful….

Manners, that suited
A girl of her charm
And they should get married,
And raise lots of

CHORUS
Sweeeeet violets,
Sweeter than the roses
Covered all over, from head to toe
Covered all over in sweet violets.

The girl called the farmer
And told him to stop
Or she’d call her father
And he’d call a….

Taxi, who’d be there
Before very long

[more stuff I can’t remember]

10

She’ll be come’n round the mountain, when she comes;
Michael row the boat ashore;
Cum By Ya;
(when no adults were around) Puff the Magic Dragon;
John Jackob Jingleheimer Schmidt, His name is my name too;
On top of old smokey.

Nostalgia can be a trip…

11

The grand of duke of York
he had ten thousand men
he marched them up a hill
and then he marched them down again
and when you’re up you’re up
and when you’re down you’re down
and when you’re only half-way up
you’re neither up nor down.

Of course, you sit or stand on all the ups and downs.

12

Damn you! Now I have that one stuck in my head, too. This is how we sang it:

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 out of the door.

It rolled into the garden
And under a bush
And then my poor meatball
Was nothing but mush.

(Then there’s a verse about the meatball turning into a tree, but I can’t remember how it went.)

13

Haggalina Maggalina
Oomscotta, watscatta,
Mary Ugga Wugga
Was her name

She had two teeth
In her mouth
One pointed north
And the other pointed south

Haggalina Maggalina
Oomscotta, watscatta,
Mary Ugga Wugga
Was her name

She two warts
On her knee
One served coffee
And the other served tea

etc., etc.

14

B-I-N-G-O was his name O… :slight_smile:

15

Ooooh! They built a ship Titanic to sail the ocean blue

16

CIRCA 1981 AND 1982
THE CANNIBAL KING"
The cannibal king
with the big nose ring
went out with the dusty ** mai-ai-aid**,
Every night by the pale moon light
across the lake he caa-a-ame.

He hugged and kissed
his pretty little miss
under the bamboo tree-ee-eee,
And every night by the pale moon light
it sounded like this to me-e-e,
“Hurumph, hurumph, poddidottiday, hurmph , hurumph, hurumph poddiottiday.”

“Let’s build a bungalow
big enough for two
big enough for two, my darling,
big enough for two
and when we’re married
happy we’ll be,
under the bamboo, under the bamboo tree.”

If you’ll be M-I-N-E , mine ,
I’ll be T-H-I-N-E, thine,
and I’lll K-I-S-S, kiss you
all the T-I-M-E, time.

We’ll take a W-A-L-K, walk
into the P-A-R-K, park,
and I’ll K-I-S-S, kiss you,
in the D-A-R-K, dark.
And while I K-I-S-S, kiss YOU,
I will M-I-S-S, miss you.
And I will L-O-V-E, love you
all the T-I-M-E, time.

Rack them up, stack them up,
any old time, match in the gas tank, kaboom!
One match, one booooooom.

17

From Boy Scouts… You do it 12 days of Christmas style, one more line each time. (I had to look up the parts in italics.)

One fat hen,
a couple of ducks,
three baby brown bears,
four rabid running hares,
five! fat! fidgety! females!
six simple simons selling salt in siam,
Seven slimey sailors sippin’ ??? at sea,
eight elongated elephants escalating on an escalator,
*Nine nasty nosed nibbly "O"s nibbeling on nine nasty nosed nibbly oughts,
Ten two-tone two-ton transcontinental trucks, with trailers, traveling from Talahassie Tennessee to Tyler Texas *

18

We sang the Shaving Cream song growing up, and I’m singing that tune over and over in my head since I saw it posted, but I can’t remember many of the words. Can someone spark my memory. I can remember…

and fell in a … of shaving cream

Bad memory!

19

The Devil’s Grandmother, oh yes, The Titanic That has to be one of the most catchy songs I’ve ever heard.

Some others I remember are:
The Jeep Song
My Uncle He Sells Old Clothes
Linger a Little Longer
Barges
When I First Came to this Wonderful Land
My Lover and I Sailed Over the Sea
The Rooster Song
He Jumped from 40 Thousands Feet and Didn’t Pull the Cord
Me and My Dinosaur
The Merry-go-round Broke Down
Down by the Station Early in the Morning
Great Big Piles of Greasy Grimmy Gopher Guts
Make New Friends but Keep the Old
Little Green Things

One odd song I remember is “Princess Pat.” Somebody told me it was banned by the local Girl Scouts. I don’t know why. Does anybody else remember it?

20

Hey, thanks for the memories.

"I want ‘mow’ [making lawn-mowing movements w/our arms]of Jesus!
‘Mow’ and ‘mow’ and ‘mow’
I want ‘mow’ of Jesus than I’ve ever had before!
I want ‘mow’ of His great love, so rich and full and freeeeee,
I want ‘mow’ of Jesus, so I’ll give him ‘mow’ of meeee!"

:repeat faster, ad nauseum, ala the Michael Finnigan song:

It was a summer Bible camp. :rolleyes: