Main Piece:

Participant “Okay so when you want somebody to finish their drink quickly or like you just want them to get drunk…legally… we have this chant where it goes, um… ‘weeee like to drink with Amy cause Amy is our mate, and when we drink with Amy she gets it down in 8…7…6…5…4…3…2…1’ and then they have to finish it within that song”

Context:

The participant always sings this drinking song when her and her friends go out, everyone was unfamiliar with the song but quickly caught on. I asked her to explain it to the group.

Background:

The participant is originally from England and just recently moved to the United States as an international student. She is a second semester freshman at the University of Southern California in the Cinema and Media Studies Program. The drinking age in England is 18 and this is an extremely common song among the participant and her friends from home. She learned this song from her peers and it has become a fun song they always sing on their nights out.           

Analysis:

Drinking songs are popular all over the world and vary from place to place. They act as a sort of bonding mechanism and help to bring a party and group of people closer together. It also can act as a rite of passage. As a kid, you are not allowed to be included in all the songs until you reach a certain threshold at which point you are then allowed to participate.

Main Piece:

Original:

“ek billee aaya

khaana kha

doodh pee liya

jao jao jao”

Rough Translation:

“one cat came

food ate

milk drank

go go go”

Participant – “So, when I was little my grandpa, who is from India, and he speaks Hindi would come and visit us and he would always tell us little nursery rhymes and a lot of them I don’t remember but I remember this one because he did it every single time. So like he would have me put my hand out and like as he would say it, he would fold each of my fingers down and in the part where it’s talking about…where it’s like go go go, the cat’s walking he would walk his fingers up my arm, like really slowly and suspensefully and then like tickle my armpit and every single time I thought it was hilarious and I would start laughing, and I didn’t even know what it meant, I just thought it was fun.”

Context:

I asked the participant if she had grown up with any songs or nursery rhymes that had stuck with her or that she could still remember. She immediately knew there was one she loved as a child about a cat and after some time recalled it and shared it with me. 

Background:

The participant was born in the California Bay Area and grew up there until she was 8. Her family then moved to Minnetonka Minnesota where she lived until she moved to Los Angeles to join the University of Southern California’s class of 2021. The participant has a half White and half Indian background. This nursery rhyme was passed on to the participant by her grandpa.      

Analysis:

Nursery rhymes hold deep importance in our personal lives as we grew up with them being engrained in us. Though these vary from family to family there are most often common strands between them all. Typically, within a family all of the kids share the knowledge of the songs with their siblings. Nursery rhymes often offer some sort of meaning or lesson that can be taken away but often times kids are too little to understand. In this situation, the participant was too young to be aware of the messages but the importance came from the strong bond it helped form between her and her grandfather and the positive memories it left her with.

Main Piece:

Participant – “So, we would always sing at recess in California the song that goes…

‘Brick wall waterfall

girl you think you know it all

you don’t, I do

so boom with that attitude

recesses pieces, 7-up

you mess with me, I’ll mess you up’

…and a lot of people have different endings to that”                

Context:

The participant was in my room with a few of my other friends, we discussed the games we used to play as kids. She shared this common song from her childhood that the girls would often sing to one another while playing games.

Background:

The participant was born in the California Bay Area and grew up there until she was 8. Her family then moved to Minnetonka Minnesota where she lived until she moved to Los Angeles to join the University of Southern California’s class of 2021. The participant has a half White and half Indian background. This folk song was passed onto the participant by other girls in her elementary school, almost every girl in school knew the song.          

Analysis:

The participant shared this song and my friends and I all knew the beginning of it but had different variations for the ending. This often happens with folk music, it has a similar base and tone, but can have big differences from place to place. This song varied from friend group to friend group and as kids you could tell if someone went to your school based on what version of the song they knew.