When I was little we had a record player and quite a few songs for kids. My favourite was "I'm a Yankee Doodle Dandy." Another one was "Where Do You Worka John?" which I recently found out was a "novelty song" from the 1920s.
Where do you worka, John?
On the Delaware-Lackawanna!
What do you do-a, John?
I pusha, I pusha, I pusha!
What do you pusha, John?
I pusha, I pusha, da trucka!
Where do you work John?
On the Delaware Lackawannawannawannawan, the Delaware Lackawanna!
I also remember schoolboy songs. Like the one that went:
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Teacher hit me with the ruler!
I met her at the door with a loaded .44
And she ain't gonna teach no more!
There was also a variant on "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" that went:
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Cowboy
Had a very shiny gun!
And if you ever saw it,
You would turn around and run!
* * *
Then one foggy Christmas eve,
The sheriff came to say,
"Rudolph, with your gun so bright,
Won't you shoot my wife tonight?"
And of course there were Christmas songs! I think the last classic Christmas songs were "Do You Hear What I Hear?" and "The Most Wonderful Time of the Year" in 1963. (Unless you count "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer"!)
Did you ever get the words to TV theme songs wrong? The opening line of The Mary Tyler Moore Show is "Who can turn the world on with her smile?" but I thought it was "Who can turn the world down with a smile?" I actually prefer my version!
My mother remembered millions of songs! Father remembered the Danny Kaye song that went, "Bongo, bongo, bongo, I don't wanna leave the Congo, no no no-no-no no!"
No comments:
Post a Comment