Tag Archives: camp song

“The Johnson Boys” Campfire Song

Nationality: Canada/USA
Age: 55
Occupation: Software Engineer
Residence: Seattle
Performance Date: 4/1/22
Primary Language: English

Context:

KR’s grandfather was a Scoutmaster in Ontario who led Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts on camping trips and also enjoyed going camping with his own family. He remembers this piece as one of the songs his grandfather used to sing around the campfire with them.

Main Piece:

“The Johnson Boys”

Verse 1:  
Oh, the Johnson boys, the Johnson boys,
 They lived on a mill on the side of the hill, 
Verse 2:
Oohh, the Johnson boys, the Johnson boys, 
They lived on a mill on the side of the hill,
Verse 3:
Ooohhhhh, the Johnson boys, the Johnson boys,
They lived on a mill on the side of the hill.

Continue ad infinitum, with the “oh” being drawn out longer with each repetition of the verse.

Analysis:

KR remembers “The Johnson Boys,” as “the song with one hundred thousand verses.” He says it’s, “a fun little song that everyone gets to chime in on,” since the lyrics were easy to remember and stretching out the “oh” always made the kids laugh. This song fulfills the classic roles of a good campfire song: something easy to pick up and remember, but with a fun twist to entertain the children. Since KR’s grandfather was a scout leader, the trips he led were mainly composed of children, it makes sense that he would have a library of these songs that are easily accessible for anyone.

This facet of folk song is interesting to me because while it is folk culture, it is also in some ways an institutionally pushed song. By this I do not mean that it was integrated into standardized education, or utilized by the government/corporations, but it significantly differs from some other children’s songs because it is a song that was taught to children by adults, and generally performed between children and adults. Often, folkloric children’s chants and songs evolve within the young population, perhaps even against the will of the adults surrounding them. But this song, and other campfire songs like it, are more of a bridge between the cultural worlds of the child and the adult leaders. They are neither the children’s song (because the children did not create it or claim it as their own to change and sing on their own) but also not a song for the adults (because the adults sing it primarily for the enjoyment of the children).

French camp song – Cunégonde

Context: 

This piece was collected in a casual interview setting in the informant’s back yard. My informant (JP) was born in Lynon, France, and moved to California in 2002 with his wife for their jobs at Caltech. He is a professor of Seismology, enjoys playing tennis and guitar, has two teenage daughters, and loves to sing old French camp songs he learned as a kid. The following is a song JP learned when he went to summer camp as a child, when he was around 10 years old. He still sings it and taught it to his daughters who like to sing along.

Main Piece: The following is a transcribed camp song JP sung.

Cunégonde, veux-tu du fromage,

Oui ma mere, avec du beurre dessus,

Bein ma fille, t’es bien trop gourmande, et t’auras un coup pied aux…

**repeats from the start** 

Translation:

Transliterated translation: **note: “gourmande” has no direct translation. It is closest to “greedy for food”** 

Cunégonde, want you cheese,

Yes my mother, with some butter on top,

Well my girl, you’re well too greedy, and you’ll have a kick to the … 

Fully translated version: 

Cunégonde, do you want cheese,

Yes my mother, with some butter on top,

Well my daughter, you are too greedy for good, and you’ll have a kick to the … 

Thoughts: 

The reason this song is so funny to children is that the beginning of the name “Cunégonde” sounds like the word “ass” in French. When the mother tells her daughter she’s going to give “a kick to the…” and the song repeats, it sounds like the mother is going to kick Cunégonde’s ass. This was a playful song my sister, dad and I would song together growing up, but I was never really able to share it with my American friends because it does not translate well. 

Annotation:

For another version of the Cunegonde song, please follow this link: https://forum.parents.fr/t/chansons-debiles-3/29119 

French camp song – À la Pêche aux Moules

Nationality: French American
Age: 57
Occupation: University Professor
Performance Date: April 16, 2020
Primary Language: French

Context: 

This piece was collected in a casual interview setting in the informant’s back yard. My informant (JP) was born in Lynon, France, and moved to California in 2002 with his wife for their jobs at Caltech. He is a professor of Seismology, enjoys playing tennis and guitar, has two teenage daughters, and loves to sing old French camp songs he learned as a kid. The following is a song JP learned when he went to summer camp as a child, when he was around 10 years old. He still sings it and taught it to his daughters who like to sing along.

Main Piece:

The following is a transcribed song JP sung:

À la pêche aux moules, moules, moules

Je ne veux plus y aller maman

Les gens de la ville, ville, ville

M’ont pris mon panier maman

Les gens de la ville, ville, ville

M’ont pris mon panier maman

*Repeats from the top*

Translation:

Transliterate translation: 

At the fishing of muscles, muscles, muscles,

I don’t want to go anymore mom,

The people of the city, city, city,

Took my basket mom,

The people of the city, city, city,

Took my basket mom.

Translated version:

At the muscles, muscles, muscles fishing,

I don’t want to go anymore mom,

The people of the city, city, city,

Took my basket mom,

The people of the city, city, city,

Took my basket mom.

Thoughts: 

This was a very cute, upbeat song and I can understand why so many children would sing it together during camp. It’s a song about bullying and going to your mother for comfort, which most people can emotionally connect to. To this day, French school children sing this song, but it has been mass commercialized since the time JP learned it and you can find many Youtube videos of it for children. In my opinion, because of its commercialization, it has lost a lot of its charm.

Childhood Camp Song

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Cornell University
Performance Date: 4/12/18

Screen Shot 2018-04-26 at 3.41.53 PM

 

 

As any other child who went to summer camp, it is classic to have been picked up and driven to camp on a school bus. Even if that didn’t happen for you, you probably had some other kind of experience that was bonding for a group of people. One of my brother’s favorites was the lyric down by the bay. We would always have different games and songs that we would sing on the bus just to pass time and again to bond with people. This song was about going home and making up a silly rhyme. Basically, each Time that you saying “down by the bay where the watermelons grow, back to my home I dare not go, for if I do, my mother will say,” and then insert a different kind of rhyme such as “did you ever see a moose kissing a goose, down by the bay? And then continue the rest of the song for it however long you could go. Sometimes we would spend up to 45 minutes singing this song on our way home. It was overall just a very fun way to interact with other campers and to socialize.

 

“The Bagel Song” at Camp

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Illinois
Performance Date: 04/25/15
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

The informant is a 20-year old college sophomore at University of Michigan majoring in industrial and systems engineering. She went to sleep-away camp for several years and was excited to share some of her fond memories of it with me. One such memory is “the Bagel Song.”

 

“Bagels, doo doo doo

Bagels, doo doo doo

 

Bagels on Mars, Bagels on Venus

I got bagels in my…..

NOSE!

 

Bagels, doo doo doo

Bagels, doo doo doo

 

Bagels on the pier, bagels on the dock

I got bagels on my….

NOSE!

 

Bagels, doo doo doo

Bagels, doo doo doo

(The next person makes up a stanza similar to the first two, with provocative lyrics that make the listener think of something dirty, but that ends in NOSE”

 

Interviewer: “Where did you learn the Bagel Song?”

Informant: “I remember my counselor one year teaching it to me and a few other campers. We thought it was totally hilarious. When I was a counselor a few years ago, I taught it to my campers too.”

Interviewer: “Where would you guys sing the song?”

Informant: “Oh gosh, all the time. Um, we would sing it when camp songs were song. Like at bonfires and before mealtimes when everyone was together waiting to eat. We would tease the cute male counselors with it too…”

Interviewer: “Did your counselor who taught you the song say where she learned it?”

Informant: “No. We never asked. But I do have a friend who went to an all-boys camp in Wisconsin who told me they had a variation of the song they would sing.

Interviewer: “Do you remember how the variation went?”

Informant: “Hmm. I think it was the same general principle. I think what was different was that the boys said “Bacon” instead of “bagel”? I’m not entirely sure though; it was a long time ago that I talked to my friend about it!”

 

Thoughts:

I see the Bagel song as a humorous song dealing with taboos of sex and sexuality. The song is especially funny because it makes the listener the one with the “dirty mind”, not the singer, as it is the listener who thinks the singer is going to make an obscene reference.

Oring talks about Children’s folklore (I would consider “The Bagel Song” fitting into this category) a good deal in Folk Groups and Folklore Genres. Ideas of childhood have been purified for a long time in American society, and the oppressiveness of the controlled environment in which children reside in can partially explain their dealing with the sexuality taboo, along with other taboos.