Ronke nko O

O wa nle O

O sun jaburata si yara O

Ta lo ba wi

Ta lo na O

How is Ronke doing?

She is at home.

She is deeply asleep in the bedroom.

Who reprimanded her?

Who Spanked her?

This is a Yoruba lullaby that is sung to a crying child.  Abiola heard the song as a young child.  She is the oldest of six children, and she often heard the lullaby sung to her younger siblings.  She also has four children who she sang the song to when they were young.

The song asks about the condition of the crying child.  In this example the child’s name is Ronke.  The first line asks what is wrong with the child.  A more representative English translation is : What about Ronke? The next two lines state what the child should be doing.  The singer states that the child is at home in a deep sleep, which is the ultimate goal of the lullaby.  As there is typically no known reason for the child to be crying, the singer asks if anyone chastised the child or spanked her to make her cry.

The song has proven to be very effective.  Abiola not only remembers hearing it sung by many women as a child, and singing it to her own children as well as her youngest sister, but the song is still sung in her family, even by those who do not speak any other words of Yoruba.

Playground Songs- United States

“Andy and Mary sitting in a tree. k.i.s.s.i.n.g. First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes a baby in a baby carriage.”

I asked Joanne to tell me the version she knows for the K.I.S.S.I.N.G. song. She told me that this was the only version she knows. She learned it from her older sister; who is 11. She said she saw her sister saying it to another boy and she decided to copy her. She said her sister didn’t like her copying her and got mad at her. I asked her if she knew what this song meant and she said she kind of knows. You say it to your friends if they like someone. I asked her if she says it to her friends often and she said she doesn’t but her sister says it often. She told me that her friends and she don’t like boys and boys are losers.

Joanne is a funny little girl. I tutor Joanne at a tutoring center in Korea Town in downtown Los Angeles. I asked her to tell me any playground songs or phrases that she likes to say. She first told me that she didn’t know any. However, when I asked her about the K.I.S.S.I.N.G song, she told me she knew that one from her sister. I remember learning this song when I was a kid in elementary school. I remember that I had huge crush on older girl at school and all my friends would tease me about it with this song. I guess even with time, some things don’t change in playgrounds. I eventually started to sing this song to my other friend when they had crushes. Of course, at that age, we all would deny our little crushes and call girls gross and ugly. I remember there was a second verse that we would sometimes sing. It would continue on with “That’s not all! That’s not all! “name” is drinking alcohol!”. Joanne didn’t seem to know this part because her older sister did not mention this part. I asked her if her classmates say the second verse but she said she didn’t remember.

With a quick search on the internet, the first site that came up was the Wikipedia site. The Wikipedia site description of the song was, “a name of a playground song or taunt. It really only achieves its desired effect—embarrassment—when sung among children to a couple that is in romantic love. The embarrassment is derived from the prospect of romantic contact between a boy and a girl, usually an uncomfortable topic for young children.” The site also showed some variation to the song that I know. The first verse was the same but it was the second verse that was different. In the second verse, Wikipedia has it as “That’s not it! That’s not all! “Name” is drinking alcohol!” It also mentions other variations for the last line of the song; “Here comes a baby drinking alcohol! (or) playing basketball! (or) peeing on the wall!”[1]

Source:

1) “K-I-S-S-I-N-G”. Wikipedia. 7 April 2007. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K-I-S-S-I-N-G>. 29 April 2008.