This is the version my mother taught me twenty years ago in Seattle, not passed down from her parents though. I think she was under the impression that her friend made it up in the Midwest in the 80s, but I suspected there were other variants...


I fell out of a window, a second story window
I caught my eyelash on the window sill, the sill
Fell on a train, I think it looks like rain
A boy's best friend is his mother, his mother

While looking through the knothole, on Grandad's wooden leg:
Why do they build the shore so near the ocean, the ocean?
Who cut the sleeves off dear old Grandad's vest
And dug up Willie's grave to build a sewer, a sewer?

Will spearmint keep its flavor on the bedpost overnight?
Feed the baby garlic and you'll find it without light
Quick, get the ax, there's a fly on Baby's head!
Pink gum, pink pills for pale people, pale people.