Tag Archives: children’s song

Iranian Nursery Rhyme

Nationality: Iranian
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Glendale, California
Performance Date: February 18, 2021
Primary Language: English
Language: Farsi

Main Piece

Original Script

Phonetic Script

Pinky miguyad, “boxzarit dozdi konam”

Angoshte halghe miporsid, “che chizi ra mitavonim bedozdim?”

Angoshte vasat eztehar mikonad, “chizi bozorg va taloey”

Angoshte eshare miporsid, “che kasi pasokhe khoda ra midehad?”

Angoshte shest pasokh midahad, “man boyad zira man bozorg va ghavi hastam.”

Transliteration

Pinky said, “let me steal do.”

Finger ring asked, “what thing we can steal doing?”

Finger middle declare doing, “something big and goldy.”

Finger pointing asks, “who answer God will?”

Finger thumb answered, “I shall, since I big and strong am.”

Translation

The pinky says, “Let us steal”

The ring finger asks, “What can we steal?”

The middle finger declares, “Something big and gold!”

The index finger asks, “Who shall answer to God?”

The thumb answers, “I shall, for I am big and strong.” 

Background 

My informant’s mother used to recite this nursery rhyme to her when she was little. My informant says that nursery rhymes pertaining to the fingers are very common in Iran, and there are many children’s books dedicated to giving fingers personalities. This particular rhyme, my informant believes, was local to her family because her schoolmates weren’t familiar with it. She believes that the purpose of this nursery rhyme was to teach her about the existence of roles in society. She associated the physical stature (length and width) of each of her fingers with certain personality traits. For example, the pinky is the weaker person who suggests to sin and steal, the ring finger is the accomplice, the middle finger is the materialist, the index finger is the responsible one who reminds them of the consequences of their actions, and the thumb is the voluntary scapegoat that sacrifices himself so that the hand can succeed.

Context

This nursery rhyme was told to teach children about the types of people in society. My informant cannot recall the first time she heard this from her mother, but can confirm that it was a common occurrence during her playtime hours with her mother. 

My Thoughts 

I think societal roles are an interesting concept to teach children. It is very difficult to try to teach children about the different types of people. Usually, that is learned through experience. I thought of this nursery rhyme as a type of cautionary tale, as if it is telling us to stay away from the pinky, ring and middle finger personalities and make acquaintance with the index finger and thumb personalities. My informant was young when she heard this rhyme, so it seems fitting that her mother would warn her about the different types of people in this world so that my informant can surround herself with good people in school. 

Naughty Nursery Rhyme- Driving Down the Highway

Nationality: American
Age: 55
Occupation: Sales Manager
Residence: Dallas, TX
Performance Date: April 29, 2020
Primary Language: English

Context: My informant went to elementary school in the ‘70s and sang me this song he said was used to pick on other kids you didn’t like. He told me it was a song that everyone knew, and everyone was afraid to have it sung to them. He remembers it today because of how funny he thought it was as a child.

Song Lyrics: 

    Driving down the highway, highway 64

    [Name] ripped a big one, it blew out the door

    Engine couldn’t stand it

    Engine blew apart

    All because of [name]’s supersonic fart

My thoughts: This definitely sounds like a song you would sing to make fun of friends and enemies. I hadn’t heard this song, and no one my age that I’ve talked to knows this song, so it must have gotten less popular as the years went on. I looked it up and found different versions for different regions. Here’s a link to an archive by hosted by Straight Dope where you can find different versions of this song, and other “naughty kid nursery rhymes” https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/archive/index.php/t-271331.html

Rattlesnake: A Conga Line Game

Nationality: American
Age: 56
Occupation: Health Care Administrator
Residence: Long Beach, California
Performance Date: 4/20/2020
Primary Language: English

Background: The informant is a woman in her late fifties who grew up in downstate New York in Queens and on Long Island before moving to upstate New York for college. In her mid 20s, she moved out to Southern California and she had lived there ever since. She comes from a large family of Catholic Irish-Americans. She attended public grade schools.

Main Text:

“There was one that I loved! And it was…think of a conga line but it wasn’t really a conga line. It would be kids in this long line and they would do these intricate back-and-forth kinds of movements, yknow we would all move together. And it was [singing] “R-A-T-T-L-E-S-N-A-K-E spells rattlesnake” and we just did that over and over again while we did this little…I loved that game! I don’t know why, but it was just…but we did all these intricate, back-and-forth pattersn and it was all these kids in a line.”

Context: The informant specified that this game was performed on the playground during recess and at lunch, mostly during the earlier half of elemenatary school. It was not organized by teachers, and it involved large groups of children—around a class size or more, so twenty kids and up.

Thoughts: I’d never heard of this game before, but I’m familiar enough with a conga line to get the gist of what the informant was playing. It was probably a combination of the movement and accompanying song that made the game so compelling to TR as a young child. I do think it’s funny how they referred to it as a nearly hypnotic-experience, and I’m impressed that such a large group of young children organized themselves well enough to execute this game on a daily basis, not to mention their ability to transcend friend groups.

I Love A Lassie

Nationality: Scottish
Age: 95
Occupation: Unemployed
Residence: Aberdeen, Scotland
Performance Date: April 11, 2020
Primary Language: English

MAIN PIECE

I Love A Lassie

“I love a lassie, a bonnie bonnie lassie, 

She’s as pure as a lily in the dell, 

She’s sweet as the heather, the bonnie bloomin’ heather,

Mary, my Scots bluebell.”

“[I Love A] Lassie is a lullaby that a lot of Scottish girls heard growing up.  We’d sing it to the boys too, but for some reason it was more of a girl’s song.  It’s very romantic and uplifting, which I believe a lot of our lullabies are.  We’d  sing it to girls when we wanted them to go to sleep.  I had no daughters, but I’d sing it to my granddaughters when I rocked them in my arms.”

BACKGROUND

This informant, MS, comes from Aberdeen, Scotland and has lived there for all of her life, except for a few years she spent in London.   She’s from the silent generation and has grown up with children around her for a lot of her life.  She also knows this song from when her mother would sing it to her, as well, she remembers it from hearing it in the schoolyard and local playdate-like meetings with her friends growing up.

CONTEXT

I invited MS, my great grandmother, to talk with me after a family reunion zoom call.  A few days later, we got together and we live streamed a rerun of Strictly Come Dancing over zoom and during the commercial breaks, we talked over some  folklore from her life in Scotland, specifically from her childhood in Aberdeen.

THOUGHTS

It’s strange to think a romantic song could be a lullaby because it’s not meant for people in romances, but instead, children.  I think this song represents a Scottish romanticism we don’t see portrayed in the media all the time.  It stands for this idealized woman, so it’s interesting that it is sung to girls instead of boys.  Boys may relate to the desire of the image more, but I believe there might be a sense of describing what a woman should be like to little girls so that they can grow up to be “Mary, my Scot’s bluebell”.

Barney Song

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Pasadena, Ca
Performance Date: April 28
Primary Language: English

Context: 

This piece was collected over a casual FaceTime in which we were previously just catching up and talking about our elementary school experiences. We are close friends who met in high school and have known each other for five years. My informant (JS) was born in California and is now attending Carnegie Mellon as Computer Science major. He enjoys coding, playing video games, and weight lifting.

Main Piece:

The following is transcribed from a conversation between the informant (JS) and interviewer.

Interviewer: Wait you had the Barney Song too?!

JS: Yeah, wait we did! Wait let me sing it for you, how did it go again, oh yeah, yeah it was like this

Hurray, hurray, Barney’s dead,

We barbequed his head!

We didn’t care about his body,

So we flushed it down the potty

And around around it went

Around, around it went!

Down in the drains, through the ocean, bye bye Barney’s body!

Thoughts: 

The first time I heard the Barney Song was when I was in fourth grade. From what I’ve gathered from my friends, many middle schools had variations of the Barney Song, and each was as sadistic as the next. For some reason, we all wanted Barney dead. This might have been our way of rebelling against popular culture and authority, in our own small way. Many of us grew up watching the Barney and Friends show, so this was our way to make fun of the adults for pushing the show on us or to shock them with our violent words directed towards a character we were supposed to love.