Category Archives: Musical

Down by the Banks- Children’s game/song

Nationality: Caucasian
Age: 9
Occupation: Elementary School Student
Residence: Clovis, CA
Performance Date: March 15, 2011
Primary Language: English

Down by the banks of the Hanky-Panky

Where the bullfrog jumps from bank to bank-y

With the heeps, hops

Soda pops

Hey Mr. Willie and he went ker-plop

To play this game everyone sits in a circle and you hold our hands out to each side. You place your right hand on top of your (right-hand side) neighbor’s left and your left hand under your (left-hand side) neighbor’s right hand. The person who starts the game moves their right hand and slaps the right hand of the person to their left, while everyone sings the “Down by the Banks” song. The object of the game is to not be the last person to have their hand slapped when the song ends, so after your hand is slapped you want to slap the next person’s hand as quickly as possible. If you are the last one slapped then you’re out and you have to leave the circle. Then everyone else moves in and starts the game again until there are only two people left. The last two sing the song again, but instead of slapping each other’s hands they lock fingers and swing their arms back and forth at the end of the song the person who’s elbows are straight is the winner.

The informant said that she first played this game about a year ago when she was 8 and had first joined a Jr. Cheerleading camp at the local junior high school. She and the rest of her group learned it from their cheerleading instructor who she believes was an 8th grader. The informant thinks “Down by the Banks” is a waiting game, because “You usually play it when you are waiting for something. Like your turn to perform at a competition or something.” She says it’s fun to play and that “it helps calm you down so that you don’t get stage-fright”. As for the meaning of the song lyrics,  she is unsure. She doesn’t think they mean much of anything and that the lyrics are just fun to say because they are funny sounding and rhyme.

I also played this game as a little girl and I agree with my informant that it is a “waiting game”. Every time I played it as a child it was before some kind of performance or sports competition. The game is fun, silly, and fast-paced and can soothe nerves of a young girl troubled by stage-fright. My informant said that only the older elementary school girls play it 3rd-5th grade, she has never seen any 7th grade girls playing “Down by the Banks” together and only a few 6th grade girls. I believe this song has sexual overtones that the younger girls who are between the ages of 8 and 10 or 11 do not really understand yet, so the older girls in junior high might pass it down as a bit of a joke. The younger girls have fun playing and the older girls get some amusement from knowing that the younger girls don’t really know what their singing about. The song itself could be considered a kind of practical joke played on young girls who are just barely beginning puberty and are in a liminal stage between being a child and an adolescent.

Marching Song

Nationality: American
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Oregon
Performance Date: 11 April 2011
Primary Language: English

“I left my wife in 1712

On the verge of starvation

Without a piece of gingerbread,

Did I do right? Right?

Right for my country,

Right for myself?

I managed a store,

Bought a new home,

By Jove, but I left, left…”

?Marching Song

Morgan’s mother learned this marching song from friends at a Girl Scout Camp in Northern Virginia around the year 1965 and it has been in her family ever since. When I first heard it, I was a little surprised at the content of a Girl Scout marching song. After some consideration though, I realized that it makes sense. This would not be the first time a military-style marching song has been adopted into a children’s song- for example, the “I pledge allegiance to the flag…” rhyme featured on page 91 of Elliott Oring’s Folk Groups and Folklore Genres. A brief web search revealed that this particular song exists in many forms, both as a military chant and a children’s marching song, with the unifying characteristics being that in each version, the soldier has left (“left…left…”) his wife and a number of children behind with little to no food.

This song seems to have existed at least since World War I, and earlier versions of it do not include the second half. Instead, they all say something along the lines of “Left, Left/I left my wife and [x] children/ to go and fight a war/ I left,” which makes sense given the propensity of Americans at the time to consider patriotism and the duty to one’s country a higher calling than the duty to oneself (or family). In the 1965 version, however, something is different and that is what I find so interesting. The speaker did not go off to fight a war. He went to start a new life without his wife and children and he continually questions (in marching rhythm) “Did I do right?”

In 1965, The United States was 10 years into the Vietnam War, with 10 years still to go. It appears that, given the atmosphere of fatigue and uncertainty at the time, a traditional military marching song turned children’s song was modified to convey the perspective of a draft dodger who started a new life away from his family. But why choose the year 1712? Obviously, there is no one answer. It could be a reference to the New York Slave Uprising, which happened on April 6, 1712 or the War of Spanish Succession, which Great Britain was involved in until 1714. It is also possible that the year was chosen arbitrarily. What is significant is the way the sentiment of the American people during the years of the Vietnam war was able to reach a Girl Scout camp in Northern Virginia and create a lasting piece of folklore.

Sea Shanty

Nationality: American
Performance Date: 11 April 2011
Primary Language: English

This is a folk song that Gabi, who grew up in Rhode Island learned from the “Provincetown Portuguese” side of her family.
“Cape Cod girls they got no hair.
Look away! Look away!
They make their hair with codfish fins,
We are bound for Australia.

Hey-ho, my Billy-billy boys,
We are bound for Australia,
Hey-ho my Billy-billy boys,
We are bound for Australia.

Cape Cod girls they got no combs.
Look away! Look away!
They make their combs with codfish bones,
We are bound for Australia.
(And so on it goes, replacing more and more obscene parts of Cape Cod girls with bits of codfish)”

Research reveals that sea shanties were developed as a way of occupying sailors as they toiled long hours on the seas. One aspect of them that this particular song reflects aptly is the fact that, because up until the early 20th century the American Navy did not allow female sailors, it was easy for the men to sing bawdy songs about females, reflecting a gender divide that existed for a long time in much of military culture (and can still be found in some long-standing traditions like the bawdy song).
The song could also be reflective of a rite of passage, with the sailors leaving home behind for the wilds (and wilder women) of Australia.

Folk Song

Nationality: American
Performance Date: 11 April 2011
Primary Language: English

“Maresy-dotes andoesy-dotes an liddleambsy-divie, A kiddleedivydoo, woodnchoo?”
Repeat that, with on “Oh” between, and that’s the first verse. Verse two is:
“Oh, it may seem queer, or funny to your ear, a little bit dappled or
jivey, but sing ‘Mares eat oats, and does eat oats, and little lambs eat ivy.'”

This is a happy song that Gabi learned from her grandmother, whom she described as “born and raised working-class Rhode Island Irish.” Research revealed that this is a novelty song that has been around at least since 1943 when the first recording of it was released. Since then, it’s been recorded by several other artists and found success on the pop charts several times, most recently in 1967. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mairzy_Doats]

Annotation: Scott Weiland of Stone Temple Pilots and Velvet Revolver recorded a version of this song that incorporated some of his own lyrics. It can be heard here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVF0xjRpkIg and found on promotional copies of the album “12 Bar Blues.”

Folk Song

Nationality: American
Performance Date: 11 April 2011
Primary Language: English

“So high, you can’t go over it,
So wide, you can’t go ’round it,
So deep, you can’t go under it,
You gotta go right through the door.”

Gabi learned this song from her father when she was a child and remarked that she had always found it a little disturbing. Upon reading those lyrics alone, it would seem to be unsettling because it invokes feelings of a traditional rite of passage (i.e. the inevitable crossing the threshold into adulthood) or intimations of mortality (i.e. in inevitable crossing of the threshold into the afterlife and the potential of subsequent judgment).

Upon research, I found that this song is derivative from a traditional gospel piece called “Rock my soul in the bosom of Abraham.” The full lyrics are:
“Rocka’ my soul in the bosom of Abraham
Rocka’ my soul in the bosom of Abraham
Rocka’ my soul in the bosom of Abraham
Oh, rocka’ my soul.

So high you can’t get over it
So low you can’t get under it
So wide you can’t get ’round it
You gotta’ go in at the door.

Rock, rock, rocka’ my soul
Rocka’ my soul
Rock, rock, rocka’ my soul
Rocka’ my soul.”
Though the song might be referencing “sheol,” in Judaism, the place where the righteous dead await judgment, it seems more likely that it is referring to the “bosom of Abraham” referenced in the Christian Bible in Luke 16:20-23, when the righteous beggar Lazarus is carried there while an unrighteous rich man is sent to Hell. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosom_of_Abraham]
In popular culture, the gospel song has been recorded by Elvis Presley, The Temptations, and George Clinton and the Funkadelics.