"All music is folk music; I ain't never heard no horse sing a song"

[arethinn]

Clapping and jump-rope rhymes are an intriguing part of the body of folksong. The number one song of this type that still sticks in my head is "Miss Suzie", of which I'm sure there are a gazillion variants in North America.

Miss Suzie had a steamboat, the steamboat had a bell
Miss Suzie went to heaven, the steamboat went to
Hello operator, please give me number nine
And if you disconnect me, I'll kick you from behind
Refrigerator, there was a piece of glass
Miss Suzie 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 meadow, the bees are in the park
Miss Suzie and her boyfriend are kissing in the
D-A-R-K, D-A-R-K, dark dark dark!

With minor variations (especially around the last four lines), I would guess that's similar to what anyone with two X chromosomes who grew up in the US and is reading this probably learned. But then things get a lot more diverse. I've sung the following verses for some people and been met with very blank looks:

A dark is like a movie, a movie's like a show
A show is like a TV screen, and that is all I know
I know my Ma, I know I know my Pa
I know I know my sister with the eighty-acre bra
My mother is Godzilla, my father is King Kong
My sister is the geeky one who made me sing this song

(The bit about Godzilla and King Kong, at least, is known by at least one other person, since it made it into an Answers.com article. So I'm not totally crazy on that.)

A lot of songs and rhymes we learn from our parents or similar older figures, but every clapping and jumping song I ever learned was from other children, and those solely girls, as far as I can remember. I wonder what connection this has, mystically speaking, to women as tale-tellers, and to the predominance of girls/women in fanfic writing, for that matter. But in any case, it's interesting how songs like this spread. They certainly don't do so through regular media channels. All such songs I learned were either in grade school or at summer camp, from age-mates. Where did they get them? Older sisters? They have to be passed down from somewhere, and I don't think it's parents, mostly (at least, my mother never taught me any such).

As somewhat of an aside, I have never managed to work out what is going on with the fact that the song I know as "Mary Mack" ("Miss Mary Mack, mack, mack / All dressed in black, black, black / With silver buttons, buttons, buttons / All down her back, back, back") is so totally different from the homophonous "Mari Mac" of the Maritimes ("There's a neat little lass and her name is Mari Mac / Make no mistake, she's the girl I'm gonna track"). Was there never any relation to begin with? Did they diverge wildly at some point?

Comments

[silverback2001.livejournal.com]

I learned, or at least heard the Miss Suzie songs in elementary school. I didn't hear it in Junior High or much later though, interestingly enough.

As for the verse that you know, I've heard it too. It doesn't quite flow with the rest of the song as much though, which makes me think it's a later addition, or something that didn't catch on as much as the main portion.

[arethinn]

Perhaps not, but the fact that now at least three people know it (you, me, and the article author) makes me wonder what its distribution really is. Is it perhaps western American? I was born in California (in fact I am currently living less than 5 miles from where I was born). You?

[silverback2001.livejournal.com]

I was born in Santa Cruz, and grew up in Los Banos California. I also think I may have heard it at summer camp, which was up by Sacramento.

[arethinn]

My major summer camp was also in the Sacramento vicinity. I don't suppose you were ever a Camp Fire girl?

But in general it seems we have very similar backgrounds, at least in the broad sense of "west coast" vs. "central America", "the South" or "east coast". So I guess it shouldn't surprise me that we know some of the same folk songs.

[silverback2001.livejournal.com]

Camp Fire Girl? *thinks* isn't that something to do with Girl Scouts? I was in Girl Scouts for a while, but the local troop rather sucked so it wasn't very very long.

The summer camp I went to was called Mountain Camp, out by Ice House lake. (which is above Sacramento) Fun place. I learned what I know of fencing there :)

To be back on topic through, I've found it interesting that I never hear such songs etc outside of elementary school. I STILL hear kids doing the Miss Suzie one. Though the name seems to have been shortened in some cases to Miss Sue, instead of Suzie.

[arethinn]

No, Camp Fire Boys and Girls is kind of the opposite of Boy and Girl Scouts, at least we often thought of ourselves that way. It's a totally separate organization. In terms of activities they are fairly similar (outdoor stuff, projects to earn badges, that kind of thing).

It's a curious thing -- although we didn't use the songs, I think two of my friends and I still did clapping pattern games in high school, and when I say two friends, I mean two boys, neither of which had sisters, I don't think. It was very odd of us! But we weren't doing them in earnest by that point, mostly to see how fast we could go, and how much pain we could stand. ^_-

[heron61.livejournal.com]

A lot of songs and rhymes we learn from our parents or similar older figures, but every clapping and jumping song I ever learned was from other children

There is a fairly impressive body of general (some gendered, some not) children's culture, with slang, games, rhymes, jump rope songs, and similar things that are quite old. Like all non-mediated culture, it is changing now, as some of it is recorded and then used in movies or TV shows or placed on-line, but until this started happening, it was quite enduring. I've only read small amounts about it, but I believe there are a number of well-researched books about children's culture out there if you are interested.

[arethinn]

I've examined a few of the books about American children's folksong that we have in our collection at work, and found them deadly dull. It might have to do with their age, I dunno (this is not a terribly well-updated section of our collection).

Like all non-mediated culture, it is changing now, as some of it is recorded and then used in movies or TV shows or placed on-line, but until this started happening, it was quite enduring.

This phrasing implies that it is now not "enduring", a statement I find quite curious. True, I haven't gone and listened to modern 8-year-olds to see if they sing the songs I did over twenty years ago, but I'm curious what the expanded implications are of this sentence?

[heron61.livejournal.com]

Not at all. It's not that children's culture will die out, it's that it will change. 50 years ago, children got pretty much all of children's culture from other children. 20 years ago, they got most of it from other children, but movies and tv were starting to be a major force for promoting children's culture. Now with young children getting on-line and movies and tv still being a major force, in-person child-to-child transmission of information is becoming increasingly less important (especially given [the rather scary IMHO] modern trends in parenting to greatly limit children's freedom to travel beyond the home).

As a result, I expect to see deliberate and accidental changes by TV and movie writers influencing children's culture, and also for regional differences to continue to decrease. Also, with the internet preserving things for years, or decades, and sometimes preserving them differentially, I can see data survival affecting the way children's culture changes.

It certainly won't die out, but it (like everything else during this era of ever-increasing, and (from my PoV absolutely wonderful) change, it will change in ways that it never has before. I think this is absolutely fascinating.

The fact that birth-rates are drastically falling in most of the first world will also affect children's culture, especially since children are having fewer and fewer siblings. As with all cultures, it will continue, but it will be different than it is now.

[suileach.livejournal.com]

Love your icon.

[arcanetrivia]

Attribution in the icon comments. I forget off the top of my head.

[dancinglights.livejournal.com]

Hoom. The DC-area version of Miss Suzie that I know ended with DARK. I had forgotten it to the point that I had to click through to the lyrics to recognize it, but then I could sing along through to the bit where my local one ended.

I suspect there are regional variants of many of these in exactly the same way -- and for the same reasons -- as there are to callbacks to the Rocky Horror Picture Show.

[arethinn]

Rocky is kind of the same thing for adults, now I think of it. A very complex and ritualized set of speech, song, actions, and objects. (I've never managed to learn a whole one since I've only been to Rocky a few times, and those all in high school.)

[dancinglights.livejournal.com]

I mostly went in high school, but there have been a couple cons and parties far from home where I've gone for the express purpose of finding out what the callbacks were for different regions. Some of them, probably the oldest of them, seem to be the same just about everywhere, but there are differences beyond updating advertising and other newer pop-culture references that large sections of an audience seem to know.

I enjoy Rocky as anthropological study :)

[memoryanddream.livejournal.com]

Oh sure, I know the Miss Suzie too. My variant went like this:

Miss Suzie had a steamboat, the steamboat had a bell
Miss Suzie went to heaven, the steamboat went to
Hello operator, get me number nine
And if you disconnect me, I'll chop off your behind
The frigerator, there laid a piece of glass
Miss Suzie 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
The boys and girls are kissing in the
D-A-R-K, D-A-R-K, dark dark dark!

It's funny to see the differences on what is basically the same song sung by little kids. :)

[arethinn]

Oh, I know the bathtub one too, now that you mention it.

[padaviya.livejournal.com]

Very minor variations from what I learned.

Miss Lucy had a steamboat, the steamboat had a bell,
Miss Lucy went to Heaven, the steamboat went to
Hello operator, please give me number nine
And if you disconnect me, I'll kick you in your
Behind the yellow curtain, there was a piece of glass,
Miss Lucy sat upon it, and broke her big fat
Ask me no more questions, tell me no more lies
The boys are in the washroom, doing up their
Flies are in the city, the bees are in the park,
Miss Lucy and her boyfriend are kissing in the
Dark is like a movie, the movie's like a show
The show is like a TV, and that is all I know
I know I know my ma, I know I know my pa,
I know I know my sister wears a 40-metre bra!

I also know your version of Mary Mack, but it continues. Can I remember it? It's quite naughty - there's a bit about boys jumping out of their pants.

They jumped so high, high high,
They reached the sky, sky, sky,
And they never came back, back, back,
Till the middle of July-ly-ly

Maybe the two versions of Mary Mack are based on the same person, who infamous at some point.

I also remember learning a hand-clapping song when I visited Barbados in grade four from another girl my age. I brought it back with me and taught it to everyone at school. All the girls were excited to have something new.

How did it go?

I don't remember the beginning, but it ends with:
Boys go to Jupiter, to get more stupider,
Girls go to Mars, to get more candy bars! And then you stop clapping and do a little jumping dance with your legs, crossing and uncrossing them and sing, Inky pinky soda pop, inky pinky poo!
Inky pinky soda pop, I love you! And if you land with your legs crossed at the end, it means you love a boy (or maybe vice versa, I don't remember).

Did you ever do Es-tigo-tigo (I'm sure that's not how it's meant to be spelled)? You sit in a group circle and go around the circle singing the song, clapping hands. And cat's got the measles? Where a large group stands in a circle and you cross and uncross your legs singing cat's got the measles, the measles, the measles, cats got the measles, measle's got the cat! and if you finish with your legs crossed, you take off an article of clothing and put it in the middle of the circle, if you land with your legs uncrossed, you take an article of clothing back. The teachers used to hate when we played that, because it was only ever played in winter when we had lots of extra clothes, but then we'd all be shivering.

[arethinn]

I also know your version of Mary Mack, but it continues.

So does mine (silver buttons, elephants jumping a fence -- which would appear to be the boys jumping out of their pants in yours -- etc) but I was only giving the first couple lines to identify what I was talking about.

I don't know one about Jupiter and Mars but that "inky pinky soda pop I love you" does sound familiar, perhaps as the refrain to something else..

Es-tigo-tigo / cat's got the measles doesn't ring a bell.