The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #102055   Message #2090783
Posted By: Azizi
30-Jun-07 - 07:05 AM
Thread Name: Folklore: Play Ground Hand Jives
Subject: RE: Folklore: Play Ground Hand Jives
Here's one variant form of "Pretty Little Dutch Girl" that I collected in 2004 in Pittsburgh, PA. The three African American girls {ages 7 and 8} performed this rhyme as a three person handclap {the three girls stood in a right triangle formation and took turns clapping and slapping each others hands}. The introductory lines "Zing Zing Zing/at the bottom of the sea" were performed differently than the "real" rhyme.{Each of the girls held another's pinky finger and did some swaying left to right motion with it}

Also, note the racial put-down in the ending line:

I AM A LITTLE SECOND GRADE

Zing Zing Zing
at the bottom of the sea.
I am a little __ second grade *
as pretty as can __ be be.
And all the boys around my house
go crazy over __ me me.

My boyfriend's name is __ Yellow.
He comes from Ala__bama
with 25 toes
and a pickle on his nose
and this is how the story goes.
One day I was ah __ walkin
I saw my boyfriend __ talking
to a very pretty girl
with cherry pie curls And this is what she said
"I L-O-V-E __ love you."
"I K-I-S-S __ kiss you."
"I A-D-O-R-E __ adore you"
So S-T-O-P. STOP!
1-2-3-4
Get your black hands off of me!

-snip-
The "___" indicates one beat before recitation begins again.

The "second grade" {meaning "second grader"} was used to denote what year most of the girls were. In response to my question about this line, I learned that the girls change that line to reflect which grade they are in. This performance of this rhyme was done in Oct 2004. The rhyme actually started with the girls saying "I am a first grade". But they started over again because they remembered that {two of them} were now in the 2nd grade.

On the lines "get your black hands off of me" the girls try to be the first ones to quickly snatch their hands away from the other players.