Category Archives: Musical

The SMU Beanie

Nationality: USA
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Dallas
Performance Date: 4/12/21
Primary Language: English

Main Piece

The “beanie” is a peculiar bit of Southern Methodist University (SMU) material lore that is “like a baseball cap, but it’s been shortened and it intentionally fits badly.” AB tells me about the beanie’s history at SMU:

The whole university’s freshman class, circa 1930s, used to wear them as a signifier that they were freshmen. They were required to wear them at all times when outside, and recommended to do so while inside. Over time, they were less and less used and enforced until it became just the football team and the band that kept the tradition (this was around the 1980s). By the 2000s, only the band was still enforcing the beanie tradition.

Nowadays, the band makes freshmen wear their beanies just at ceremonies, such as Homecoming. However, while not required to wear their beanies at all times, the freshmen are expected to carry it at all times: if an upperclassman asks them where their beanie is, and they don’t have it, they have to sing the Beanie Song:

  1. “Oh where, oh where has my beanie gone?
  2. Oh where, oh where could it be?
  3. With its big-ass blue bill and its diamond M on the back
  4. Oh where, oh where could it be?”

This song carries the tune of Take Me Out to the Ballgame.

Informant background

AB is a university student at Southern Methodist University (Dallas), originally from the California Bay Area. He is a member of the SMU band.

Performance context

AB described this to me during a phone call when I asked him to tell me about SMU traditions, rituals, and rumors.

Analysis

The beanie tradition seems to be a good example of an initiation ritual (or, in other terms, “hazing”) that serves to humiliate the new members so that they have to go through what all the other upper-classmen have been through, to officially be a part of the group. Also, it is notable that the tradition started with the entire school, but dwindled down to just the band over time, who are charged with carrying school spirit.

The Victory Dance of the University of Texas Rowers

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Columbus, OH
Performance Date: April 30, 2021
Primary Language: English

Main piece: When Texas [University of Texas] wins NCAA or they do well or something I think, they dance. They have this little, like, line dance kind of thing. They do this dance in their “unis”, so their rowing unisuits, they’re like leotards but for rowers, and then they have those on, plus these you know, standard cowboy boots. And they get these as part of the gear, so they get their rowing suits, their leggings, their shirts, and a pair of cowboy boots. So they’ll dance in those if they do well, onstage. And it’s kind of exciting, kind of entertaining, but sad if you’ve lost, which I guess is part of the fun. 

Background: KP is a sophomore coxswain for The Ohio State University rowing team. After coxing competitively in Maryland clubs for four years, she was recruited to cox at Ohio, which she has now done for two years. The Ohio State University rowers are currently ranked third in their region for rowing by the NCAA (though those rankings change frequently), but are Division 1. Texas, while not Ohio’s rival (which is Michigan), they are seen as “good” (according to KP), and a serious competitor. 

Context: A couple of months ago, I received a text from KP after a competition, who was upset that her team lost to Michigan. When I asked why, she explained that the loss is particularly “sad” when Michigan, Yale, or Texas wins; Texas because “they dance with their cowboy boots when they win. Which is kinda awesome but sad when they’re line dancing on a stage and you just have to look up at them in sadness.” When interviewing KP for the Archive about folklore in rowing (via Zoom, as she is still on campus in Ohio), I immediately asked her about this tradition. She had watched Texas do their victory dance at previous competitions. 

Analysis: Texas’s victory dance is a way to celebrate their (Texan) identity, distinguish themselves from other teams, bond with each other, and also glory in their victory in a semi-taunting way. The addition of cowboy boots to their uniform apparel, a stereotypical “cowboy” attire, is a way of representing the University of Texas and distinguishing them from the other teams, who are dressed in an otherwise similar way (it is important to note that while KP has only seen the Texas team perform this dance wearing cowboy boots, there have been videos posted online where they do the celebratory victory dance barefoot or wearing flip flops). While line dancing is not exclusive to Texas (and in fact its origins are believed to be from European folk dances), there is a connotation that line dancing today is accompanied by country/western music and performed by cowboys or ranch hands (i.e., working-class people). This is interesting because rowing itself has often been viewed as an elitist/classist niche sport, as it is an incredibly expensive endeavor in which to participate (in a later part of our discussion, KP refers to rowing as “classist” and “pretentious”). However, after further research, I discovered that the Texas team’s dance is often accompanied by the song “God Bless Texas”, so in this instance, the rowers choose to align their identity with state nationalism, and as an extension, their school (University of Texas is part of the State System, which is a governmental entity). Furthermore, the older rowers teach the incoming freshmen the dance. In a video I found online entitled “Texas Rowing Dance Tutorial”, the sophomore rowers were teaching the incoming athletes the dance. This practice would normally occur in person, but due to COVID, this rehearsal was done over Zoom, recorded, and posted to YouTube. The dance then also serves as a ritualistic bonding between members of the group and is perhaps even an incentive for them to practice harder in order to win so that they can then perform the dance in front of an audience. Finally, KP found the dance to be “sad if you’ve lost, but I guess that’s part of the fun”. Historically, victory dances have been used to both celebrate a victory and antagonize the losing participants. KP finding the dance sad, so much so that she believes that losing to Texas to be a particularly upsetting loss, shows that the victory dance is also used to make their fellow competitors feel lower, therefore elevating themselves. The dance is performed on a stage during the handing out of awards; all of the teams are required to stay there and watch. The practice of line dancing by the University of Texas rowing team therefore serves to show both state and team superiority over their competitors.

The Titanic – Children’s Song

Nationality: American
Age: 52
Occupation: Homemaker
Residence: Lancaster, CA
Performance Date: April 15, 2021
Primary Language: English

Context:

My informant, RW, is my mom. She grew up in Texas and attended YMCA camps most summers in her childhood in the 1970s. I have heard her sing this song to my brother and I at many points, but never knew exactly where she learned it. This piece was collected informally at home when I asked her to sing it again for me to record. I refer to myself as SW in the text.

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Main Text:

RW: “This was from the YMCA camp I believe. Or… I think it was YMCA camp… it was at GDRA in Texas, I think it was YMCA but… 

‘The Titanic never made it

And never more shall be

It was sad when that great ship

Went down to the bottom of the sea

It was sad, how sad!

It was sad, too bad!

It was sad when that great ship

Went down to the bottom of the…

Uncles and aunts!

Little bitty children lost their pants!

It was sad when that great ship 

Went down to the bottom of the sea’

And it’s all happy and peppy and you sing right along with ‘everybody died, yay!’ There was a lot more to that song, but that’s like the chorus.”

SW: “So you did that at YMCA camp, did it spread past there? Did everybody know it?”

RW: “All of my friends did!”

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Analysis:

This is a good example of the juxtaposition of tragic events in a joking context in folklore. While it’s not necessarily directly reckoning with the Titanic sinking since my mom learned it at YMCA camp in the 1970s, it is still an example of how children often have a morbid curiosity and like to make jokes about the things we would consider generally unfit for children to know about. In a way, it is also boundary exploration and learning how to express taboo topics in a way that is socially acceptable. By singing about the Titanic sinking, kids are learning how to navigate the unstable world of topics adults try to shield them from in their own unique and playful way.

Estonian ‘Regilaul’

Nationality: Estonia
Age: 48
Occupation: Property Manager
Residence: Costa Mesa, California
Performance Date: 4/23/2021
Language: Estonian, English

Background: The informant is a 48-year-old woman who was born in Estonia and immigrated to the United States, and currently lives in California. She still participates in Estonian traditions by attending the “Estonian House” which is an Estonian community located in Los Angeles.

Context: The folklore was collected during a scheduled zoom meeting in which I interviewed two native Estonians who currently live in Los Angeles and who are close friends.

Main Piece:

Informant: “Estonia has a very strong tradition of ‘regilaul’, which is a song where there is a main singer that sings something meaningful and then at the very last word of that same… you know its like a continual song. The first singer gives an idea of what she sings and then the other singers catch up the last word and carry on the song. It is called ‘regilaul’ and it’s a very Estonian tradition, you can see lots of them on YouTube.”

Collector: “So is it improvised on the spot?”

Informant: “Yeah, many times yes. The most important thing is not the melody, the melody is always the same or repeating. Like it’s a very simple melody and usually like four or five notes or tones all together. But the most important thing in them is the words, not the melody or the rhythm. I don’t know if I’m saying it correctly, but its almost like a haiku. It came from the old times when at winter nights these women were sitting around and doing handcrafts and, you know, just to spend time when working.”

Interpretation: I have been to the Estonian House in Los Angeles countless times as I was growing up and have experienced Estonian folk culture for all of my life; however, I was never aware of this “regilaul” tradition. So, I went to YouTube and watched some videos about the topic and found that it is very similar to how described above. It is sang in groups of people where there is a few lines sang together, then one person will sing the next line and the whole group will pick up on the last word of the individual singer’s line and it goes around in a circle. It does not use many, if any, instruments and is almost like a poetic chant where there is monotonous singing, repetition, and parallelism heavily involved. I also found that “regilaul” is strictly passed down orally through tradition and is not written down like a poem or haiku, as referenced by the informant. However, it serves a very similar function to poetry by painting an image through words and also serves as a representation of unity where multiple people sing together to create more of a powerful, unifying chant then the melodic songs we here in the mainstream today.

For some examples of “regilaul” watch:

Dirty Rotten Devil

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Nationality: American
Age: 79
Occupation: Retired, Former Jewler
Residence: Kelseyville, California
Performance Date: May 1, 2021
Primary Language: English

Background:

My informant for this piece is my grandmother, who learned this song from her father and passed it on to her children and grandchildren. She grew up up in North Central Wisconsin and suspects that it came from one of the men’s groups, likely a fraternity, that her father was a part of there.

Context:

My grandma sings this tune quite often in times of relaxation when joking around is warranted. I specifically remember her performing it down by the water on our family vacations to Lake Kathrine, Wisconsin, during summers when I was growing up.

Main Piece:

“I’m a devil, a dirty rotten devil, put poison in my mother’s cream of wheat! I put a blotch on, the family escutcheon, and I eat *slurp noise 2x* raw meat!”

Analysis:

While this piece of lore could be looked at as great example of how dark comedy can play an important role in the relationships between an individual and their loved ones, I want to consider it through the lens of a parent who’s child is mad at them. Given that a the rhyme uses the word “escutcheon” (the spelling of which I had to Google), I think it’s unlikely that it was written by a child. With that in mind, the parent in this situation is able to satirize the childs anger at them by joking that the child wishes to poison them–while that may not be completely true, it’s possible that the parent feels there’s some truth in the statement. Nonetheless, in noting the amount of chaos that children can cause at times, this rhyme shows the wisdom of a parent accepting that fact in their ability to make light of it.