Tag Archives: elementary school

Song

Nationality: Caucasian
Age: 7
Occupation: Student
Residence: Clayton, MO
Performance Date: March 20, 2008
Primary Language: English

Connor Taylor, 7, Male

Caucasian, English, Student

Clayton, MO

20 March 2008

Song: Jingle Bells Revised Chorus

“Jingle bells, Batman smells, Robin laid an egg, Bat mobile lost a wheel, and joker took ballet.”

Connor advised me that he learned this song at his elementary school when he was around five or six years old. He learned the remake of the tune “jingle bells” in Clayton, Missouri, where his school is located. He said he learned it when he overheard many students and even teachers performing the song instead of singing the original lyrics. When I asked him when it is performed, he told me that it is primarily sang in the winter months, especially around Christmas time when many classes are singing holiday jingles in their music classes. He said most students have learned this song and that it is sang regularly to make people laugh and have fun. The rest of the song is performed with quiet voices and proper lyrics but the chorus, which is the remade folk version, is sung loud for all to hear.

When I asked Connor what this song meant to him, he said it really did not have a meaning. Instead, it was just used to poke fun at the classic jingle bells song. Instead of singing the “boring” lyrics as he mentioned, students like to sing different versions to make the performance more exciting. He said it uses comic book characters because that is what students his age are familiar with. If they used any other characters, he said, it would not be as much fun.

The song basically makes no sense as it randomly fluctuates from characters and ideas. It does not go in any particular order as it seems it was only created to rhyme with the original version of the song. In my opinion, the song is just a way for elementary school students to feel rebellious by singing a different version. The song has no meaning but they sing it to stand out and be different from the rest of the group. There is no harm in singing this song but it is usually only sung when students are having fun. In a serious performance in front of parents, I do not believe they would sing this version. Overall, this song encourages students to have fun, but only whenever the timing allows for it.

This song can also be seen in American Children’s Folklore, which is a book written by Simon J. Bronner that discusses many types of folklore. Within this book, there are also many different versions of the “Jingle Bells” tune.

Annotation: Bronner, Simon J. American Children’s Folklore. Little Rock: August House Inc. 1988.

Song

Nationality: Caucasian
Age: 7
Occupation: Student
Residence: Clayton, MO
Performance Date: March 20, 2008
Primary Language: English

Song: Happy Birthday Variation

“Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, you look like a monkey, and you smell like one too.”

Connor explained to me that he learned this song at his elementary school whenever his class sang happy birthday to one of the students. He said that he learned it at Meramec Elementary School in Clayton, Missouri where he is from. However, he told me that his friends from other areas knew the song as well. A good time to perform this song is at a friend’s birthday party, where many children can get together and sing this version. He knows of other ways to continue the song but he said that this is the most popular between him and all of his friends. Parents tend to laugh at the children for singing this version because it reminds them of their own childhood when they used to sing different versions of songs to joke around.

According to Connor, the students sing as loud as they can so that everyone can hear their version over the other. He said that if people can hear the original version of the song, then their joke is not working. The goal is to embarrass the birthday kid on his or her own birthday. By telling the child that he or she looks like a monkey and smells like one too, Connor said that their friend will feel embarrassed as his or her face will hopefully turn red. But, it ends up being just a big joke for everyone to enjoy.

Connor thinks that this revision of the happy birthday song is a funny way to wish someone a happy birthday. He believes that there are many different versions but this is the one he knows the best. I agree with Connor in the sense that this joke is supposed to make people laugh. It is not supposed to mean that the child literally looks and smells like a monkey. Instead, it just makes him or her laugh. Birthdays are all about having fun with friends and family. This joke helps add to the excitement of turning another year older as a child because it gets everyone involved in the song. This song is great for adults too because although they are older now, the tune will help them remember their days as child singing similar birthday songs.

Rhyme – La Verne, California

Nationality: White
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: La Verne, CA
Performance Date: April 29, 2008
Primary Language: English

Children’s Rhyme-Boys and Girls

“Girls go to Jupiter to get more stupider; Boys go to Mars to get more Candy Bars!”

Steven said he learned this rhyme whenever he was in elementary school in La Verne, California. He went to Oak Mesa Elementary School and said he probably found out about it around the age of seven when he was in the second grade. He said that this rhyming game was common on the playground where many boys would all line up and sing this to the girls. At this time period, boys are not yet attracted to girls like they are in later years. Therefore, they come up with rhymes such as this to promote their status as the “cooler” sex. The boys are not the only ones that come up with little rhymes like this as many girls gang up on the boys as well. Steven said it is all fun and games and tempers are never flared.

Steven said that this rhyme is primarily said in order for boys to make fun of girls because they think they are better. It sounds childish now but then again, they were all children whenever they started saying all of this. Steven said that boys want to make fun of girls because they think that girls have the infamous “cooties” that every child believes in. Therefore, saying that girls go to Jupiter to get more stupider, the boys are implying that they are smarter than girls and that girls are just plain stupid. This does not make any sense because we all know that there is no scientific evidence proving that guys are smarter than girls. This is just children acting just as they should be with fun games and senseless rhymes.

When I asked Steven what this proverb meant to him, he responded like he was still in the second grade, saying that this proverb helps emphasize how boys are smarter than girls. He said that it reminded him of his childhood and the fun they had at their school recesses. Jokingly, he did add that he believes this proverb is correct because girls are not as smart as guys and the guys are the dominant sex. As ridiculous as that sounds, he did laugh and say that he misses his childhood and those continuous rivalries between boys and girls. He’s now over the whole girls have “cooties” thing and believes that all children should go through that phase.

When I read the proverb for the first time, I sat back and chuckled as it also reminded me of my childhood and the rivalries between boys and girls. Recess was a great time for children to poke fun at each other with little games and rhymes. I remember we used to do the exact same thing at our recesses. Overall, I think this proverb represents childhood in all the ways previously described. It obviously does not make any sense because children can not travel to different planets. However, it shows the creativity of children in the sense that they can come up with rhymes that relate to stuff they are learning in school. In this case, I’m sure that the children were studying planets so they found ways to connect planets with their rivalries with each other. Additionally, I think rhymes such as this are said throughout the country for all children to enjoy the intense rivalry with the opposite sex.

Rhyme – Conneticut

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Mystic, CT
Performance Date: March 14, 2008
Primary Language: English

“Mr. Simonchini had a ten-foot weenie and he showed it to the neighbor next-door,

She thought it was a snake, so she hit it with a rake, and now it’s only nine-foot-four.

Mr. Simonchini had a nine-foot weenie and he showed it to the neighbor next-door,

She thought it was a snake, so she hit it with a rake, and now it’s only eight-foot-four.

Mr. Simonchini had an eight-foot weenie and he showed it to the neighbor next-door,

She thought it was a snake, so she hit it with a rake, and now it’s only seven-foot-four.

Mr. Simonchini had a seven-foot weenie and he showed it to the neighbor next-door,

She thought it was a snake, so she hit it with a rake, and now it’s only six-foot-four.

Mr. Simonchini had a six-foot weenie and he showed it to the neighbor next-door,

She thought it was a snake, so she hit it with a rake, and now it’s only five-foot-four.

Mr. Simonchini had a five-foot weenie and he showed it to the neighbor next-door,

She thought it was a snake, so she hit it with a rake, and now it’s only four-foot-four.

Mr. Simonchini had a four-foot weenie and he showed it to the neighbor next-door,

She thought it was a snake, so she hit it with a rake, and now it’s only three-foot-four.

Mr. Simonchini had a three-foot weenie and he showed it to the neighbor next-door,

She thought it was a snake, so she hit it with a rake, and now it’s only two-foot-four.

Mr. Simonchini had a two-foot weenie and he showed it to the neighbor next-door,

She thought it was a snake, so she hit it with a rake, and now it’s only one-foot-four.

Mr. Simonchini had a one-foot weenie and he showed it to the neighbor next-door,

She thought it was a snake, so she hit it with a rake, and now he’s got a weenie no more!”

I used to sing this song in elementary school with my friends about our librarian named Mr. Simonchini.  We all sang it to make fun of him because he was a goofy looking guy and probably because he was an adult figure and an easy target.  We would often sing it on the playground or on bus rides to and from school, because nearly everyone in my class knew the song.  Usually it consisted of a few kids joking about a reading assignment that he would make us do and then one of us would bust into the song.  I do not remember how I learned this rhyme, but I do know that I learned it early on in my elementary school career, sometime in the mid 1990’s.  Every now and then we would change the words so that it was someone else who had the “ten-foot weenie” and sing it about them, however with the fortune of our librarian having such a name that so easily rhymed with weenie, we often reverted back to the original form.  Only my classmates and I would use the rhyme and we never sang it around adults so we wouldn’t get into trouble.

I believe that this rhyme basically was a form in which we could show our feelings towards our library teacher, that is that we believed him to be a pervert of sorts.  The fact that he is showing his weenie to a female neighbor and her getting scared gives the vibe that he is not welcome in her home and that he is meant to be portrayed as a creep.  Most children at this age found this funny and we would often laugh about the thought of our teacher showing off his family jewels to a neighbor, only, to have her cut it off.

This rhyme can also be seen as a way for children to become acquainted with the idea of separate sexes and become used to talking about a male’s private parts.  Children have different ways of learning about the opposite and same sexes and this song was most likely a form in which we could make fun of a teacher while also making a taboo reference to a penis.

Rhyme/Game – New York

Nationality: American
Age: 50
Occupation: Musician
Residence: New York, NY
Performance Date: April 25, 2008
Primary Language: English

“Playmate, come out and play with me

And bring your dollies three

Climb up my apple tree

Shout down my rain barrel

Slide down my cellar door

And we’ll be jolly friends forever more, more, more, more, more

I’m sorry playmate

I cannot play with you

My dolly’s got the flu

Boo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo

Ain’t got no rain barrel

Ain’t got no cellar door

But we’ll be jolly friends forever more”  (Repeat and increase speed)

Virginia told me that this is a handclapping game that she used to play when she was a little girl growing up on the elementary school playground in the 1960s near Westchester County in New York.  Usually two girls got together and sat across from one another and slapped hands and sang this tune to go along with the clapping.  She said that most girls on her playground knew how the song went and how the sequence of claps was, and like many playground games only the girls played this handclapping game. Virginia said that this also took place mostly on the playground, at lunch tables, or in the classroom when the teacher wasn’t having them do work.  She told me that this was not the only handclapping rhyme that she had learned growing up but it was the one that she remembered the words the best to.

Only the children played this handclapping game, as the adults were often shunned from this child’s play.  Also, Virginia said the better a girl was at handclapping, the more respect they had from among their peers and often the best clappers would face off against each other to see who would mess up first.

In reading through the lyrics of the song it makes sense that two girls would be singing this song to each other. The lyrics basically say that one friend wants the other to come out and play but the other replies that her dolly is sick so she can’t come out, yet they will continue to be friends anyways.  Girls were known to carry dolls in the 1960s, not boys.    Also, the fact that girls rarely associated with boys in elementary school gives this even more evidence that it was regarded as a strictly feminine game.  This rhyme reflects a girls desire to make friends and also children’s imagination by giving life to the dolls.