Origins: Loose as a Goose

Subject: Origins: Loose as a Goose
From: GUEST,Bob Coltman
Date: 12 Mar 08 - 08:25 AM

Everybody knows the cliche "loose as a goose." It's turned up in several recent pop and rock songs:

Funky like a chicken, loose as a goose,
As happy as a bunny or as tight as a noose ...

Of late there's a connection to "drunk as a skunk" but I don't know how far back that tie-in goes -- it might only be a recent combination by the likes of Li'l Josh, or as in Tower of Power's "The Skunk, the Goose and the Fly":

Drunk as a skunk
Loose as a goose
High as a fly

What I'd like to find is "loose as a goose"'s earliest occurrence in a song. So far the champion is Uncle Dave Macon's "Travelin' Down the Road," which he first recorded for Brunswick in June 1929, but it remained unissued. The first time "Travelin' Down the Road" actually reached record was on Bluebird BB-B7234, recorded eight years later, August 1937.

Uncle Dave now and then satirized riffs from popular music, as with "He Won the Heart of My Saro Jane" and others.

When he used "loose as a goose," was he just quoting a saying from his own childhood? Did he make it up himself (unlikely, I think)? Or did he get it from elsewhere in the music world?

Anyone know a song EARLIER than 1929 using the phrase "loose as a goose?"

Subject: RE: Origins: Loose as a Goose
From: fat B****rd
Date: 12 Mar 08 - 08:28 AM

Where does "I feel real loose like a long necked goose" come from?

Subject: RE: Origins: Loose as a Goose
From: fat B****rd
Date: 12 Mar 08 - 08:30 AM

Jusr remembered it's Chantilly Lace.'scuse thread drift, Bob.

Subject: ADD: Travelin' Down the Road
From: GUEST
Date: 12 Mar 08 - 08:33 AM

Since the DT hasn't got "Travelin' Down the Road," here it is, with its "loose as a goose" phrases introducing each chorus:

TRAVELIN' DOWN THE ROAD
As sung by Uncle Dave Macon, Bluebird BB-B7234, recorded August 1937.

Cho: Travelin' down the road, travelin' down the road,
         Happiest time that ever I had, travelin' down the road.

Dig my Irish potatas, roast 'em in the sand,
Bake my raccoon, possum, call up Julie Ann.

SPOKEN:
Got done layin' by corn last week, come ridin' down the lane on my old mule's back,
I met my true love, she says, Hon, you do look ...

Just as loose ... as loose as a goose ...

CHO

Hardest work that ever I done, diggin' round that pine,
Easiest work ever I done, handin' them ladies a line.

SPOKEN:
I went on down by homeward, she invited me in to dinner. That old lady had
slapjacks and molasses for dinner, I set down to eat and I said to her,
Mother, old lady, yo' slapjacks an' molasses is ...

Just as loose ... as loose as a goose ...

CHO

Wish I was in heaven, setting in a chair,
With a glass of wine in each hand, talkin' to my dear.

SPOKEN:
I was down to home, I was walkin' out in the yard, had a little dog been suckin' eggs
and killin' young chickens. Been a-hangin' about three days. But he did hang ...

Just as loose ... as loose as a goose ...

CHO

My wife died Friday night, Sat'dy she was buried,
Sunday was my courtin' night, Monday I got married.

SPOKEN:
Tuesday night I come in a little drunk, she commenced argyin' with me,
but I soon saw that her tongue was ... just so loose ...
that they wasn't any use ...

CHO

Subject: RE: Origins: Loose as a Goose
From: GUEST,Chicken Charlie
Date: 12 Mar 08 - 09:49 AM

I always liked the adjective form, "loosey-goosey." All the skunks I have ever met were T-totallers, so I suspect both these comparisons were invented just for the rhyme. See also "he was stinkin' from drinkin'."

CC

Subject: RE: Origins: Loose as a Goose
From: GUEST,TJ in San Diego
Date: 12 Mar 08 - 11:09 AM

Being a former farm boy, I can postulate two possible origins for the term:

    1. The proclivity for geese to have overactive digestive tracts
         notorious for their production of poop (Full....as a
         Christmas goose...)

    2. The curious (loose?)locomotion of your average goose.

Subject: RE: Origins: Loose as a Goose
From: Thompson
Date: 12 Mar 08 - 05:24 PM

If you've ever cleaned up after geese, this is *no* mystery.

Subject: RE: Origins: Loose as a Goose
From: GUEST,Bob Coltman
Date: 13 Mar 08 - 12:25 PM

Yeah me too, but c'mon ...

The question posed was: occurrences of the phrase "loose as a goose" in songs any time prior to 1930? Anyone got any information on that?

Subject: RE: Origins: Loose as a Goose
From: Bat Goddess
Date: 14 Mar 08 - 07:22 AM

Errol Flynn reported in "My Wicked Wicked Ways" that in his youth, he made a "goose bracelet" by feeding a piece of pork rind with a string tied around it to a goose. Pork rind evidently goes through a goose's innards immediately without being touched by the digestion process. He then fed it to another goose, and another and another.

Loose as a goose? In matters digestive?

Boyish prank -- things must have been boring on Tasmania, the back of beyond.

Linn

Subject: RE: Origins: Loose as a Goose
From: Azizi
Date: 15 Mar 08 - 09:35 AM

Everybody knows the cliche "loose as a goose." It's turned up in several recent pop and rock songs

Bob, I'm a part of everybody and I ashamed{?} to admit that I didn't know that the phrase "loose as a goose" was part of "several recent pop and rock songs". I'd love to know what songs these are and which country {countries?} they were {are?} known in.

But...

Though I don't have an answer about the meaning of that phrase and its original song source, I'm absolutely delighted to learn about the songs that have been posted on this thread since I love finding possible sources for the phrases used in children's rhymes and cheers and "How Funky Is The Chicken" is the name of a contemporary children's cheerleader cheer. To date, there are four examples of that cheer that are posted on my website http://www.cocojams.com/cheerleader_cheers.htm. Here are two of those examples:

How Funky Is The Chicken {Example #1}
{The rest of the squad and the audience repeat each line after the soloist}

How funky is the chicken.
How loose is the goose.
So come on everybody.
And shake your caboose.
Yeah. And shake your caboose.
-Faith, Hope, and Grace {African American sisters, 6-9 years old, Alafia Children's Ensemble, Braddock, Pennsylvania; 1998}

**

How Funky Is The Chicken {Example #3}
HEEEEY-O this is how we go How funky is your chicken? How loose is your goose? How high can u fly? How low can go? How fast can you run NOT FAST ENOUGH BECAUSE WE WON!
-missy {Australia}; 4/21/2007
   
-snip-

I should note that "How Funky Is The Chicken" doesn't appear to be that well known in the Pittsburgh area among the African American children I've worked with. I asked my daughter who teaches at a Pittsburgh elementary school if she's ever heard children reciting this rhyme {besides in the Braddock group referenced above} and she said she hadn't. The girls who are cited as the sources for the cheer in 1998, offered that cheer in response to my asking the group for examples of any rhymes and cheers. The girls had just moved into Braddock, Pennsylvania from another Pittsburgh area city whose name I don't recall. It didn't appear that anyone in that group of about twenty 5-12 year old girls and boys had every heard that cheer, but because of its call and response format, they enjoyed learning the cheer, and doing its movements {particularly the one where you switch your hips while saying "shake your caboose"}.

I never thought to ask the children {or myself} what "loose is the goose" or "funky is the chicken" meant. And the earliest use of the phrase "funky chicken" that I knew of before reading this thread was the 1973? R&B song that was recorded in 1973? by Rufus Thomas. So I'm also delighted to know about other earlier resources for "funky as a chicken".

Here's a link to a YouTube video of Rufus Thomas' Funky Chicken which was videotaped at Woodstock:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwlGNNqGf_g

-snip-

Thanks for starting this thread, Bob!