Folklore: Sex education in song?

Subject: Folklore: Sex education?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 01 Dec 09 - 05:59 PM

When we were kids, maybe 10-ish, we used to tell 'dirty' joke and sing similar songs without realy knowing what they were all about. Tonight, after a bottle of very nice Shiraz, I remembered, the 'belly dance' tune -

"All the girls in France
do a very dirty dance
They pull down their knickers
and they show all their dickers
All the boys is Spain
do th every, very same"

Never mind that it makes no sense whatsoever. It showed that at 10 we knew that the pulling down of knickers was something to be sniggered at! A little later I remember getting a clip round the ear for singing this version of a popular Irish song while it played on the telly -

"Whe Irish eyes were smiling
I took her down the lane
I gave her what she wanted
and left her there in pain
When the pain was over
her tum began to swell
and out popped little Harry
With Irish eyes as well"

Again. I didn't have a clue what I was on about.

But, here is the rub, I never had a formal sex education, as I guess most kids in the 50s and 60s didn't. Did our school ditties and dirty chats around the bike sheds enhance or detract from what was to come (Pun intended). Anyome else want to to share any childhood songs that were, in the main, all the sex eduation we goy?

Cheers

DeG

BTW - I never got to see the Anne's 'front bottom' on the farmers fields. Even though the big lads said she showed it to everyone:-)

Subject: RE: Folklore: Sex education?
From: Michael
Date: 02 Dec 09 - 08:46 AM

Our version was:-
All the girls in France
Pulled their knickers down to dance,
Singing Nelly put your belly close to mine.

Mike

Subject: RE: Folklore: Sex education?
From: Hamish
Date: 02 Dec 09 - 08:50 AM

Ummm... I wish I knew then what I know now. I think that answers part of your question.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Sex education?
From: GUEST,Dodger
Date: 02 Dec 09 - 08:51 AM

We just watched the Pigs at it

Subject: RE: Folklore: Sex education?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 02 Dec 09 - 04:02 PM

Thanks for that, Dodger - haven't laughed so much in ages.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Sex education?
From: Rowan
Date: 02 Dec 09 - 05:01 PM

Watching the pigs/horses/cattle was OK up to a point, but it gave misleading info about 'arrangements'. The two copies of Mildred Pierce and Moulin Rouge that went the rounds of the school (under the desks, of course) were a little more specific; as I recall, page 110 of the latter was particularly dog-eared.

In the days before Lady Chatterley became legal (in Oz) we had to improvise; even Tom Lehrer came in handy.

No wonder some of us turned out the way we did.

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: Folklore: Sex education in song?
From: Art Thieme
Date: 02 Dec 09 - 05:59 PM

just a bit of jokelore:

A school district was so poor that they had to use the same car for Drivers Ed. and Sex Education !!!

Art Thieme--who is proud of that one!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Sex education in song?
From: Joe_F
Date: 02 Dec 09 - 06:06 PM

In Beverly Hills, CA, ca. 1945, it was

There's a place in France
Where the women wear no pants
And the men go round
With their wienies hanging down.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Sex education in song?
From: Amos
Date: 02 Dec 09 - 06:14 PM

ANyone remember "It's only a weewee, so what's all the fuss?"

Loved it, but can't remember the name of the gal who did it.


A

Subject: RE: Folklore: Sex education in song?
From: Nick E
Date: 02 Dec 09 - 08:28 PM

Sorry I thought it said Sex ADDICTION in song, I can't help on this thread.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Sex education in song?
From: bubblyrat
Date: 03 Dec 09 - 05:09 AM

Songs like "Mademoiselle from Armentieres" and "I showed 'er the works of my threshing machine" told us more or less what we needed to know,plus a country upbringing and what books (Frank Harris etc) we could get hold of.I'm still learning,though !

Subject: RE: Folklore: Sex education in song?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 03 Dec 09 - 06:06 AM

Is 'wienie' for 'prick' much used in US? Not used here, where 'willie' would I think be the equivlt. Am I right that a 'wienie' over there also = a vienna-sausage?

Subject: RE: Folklore: Sex education in song?
From: GUEST,Dodger
Date: 03 Dec 09 - 06:22 AM

Once upon a time, Pinocchio and Little Red Riding Hood were walking in the forest.
Little Red Riding Hood felt very horny, so she tried to get Pinocchio to do the "job".
But alas, he couldn't get a hard on.
Frustrated, she got an idea... :
"Lie damn it, lie"!!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Sex education in song?
From: Monique
Date: 03 Dec 09 - 06:51 AM

I see why it talked about French girls in your ditties, it's because it seems we knew more! Just have a look at our greatest classic:

Un, deux, trois, Marie couche-toi là
Quatre, cinq, six, écarte les cuisses,
Sept, huit, neuf, ça rentre tout seul,
Dix, onze, douze, ça ressort tout rouge,
Treize, quatorze, quinze, ce sera un petit singe/prince.

which translate as:

One, two, three, Mary lie down there,
Four, five, six, spread your thighs,
Seven, eight, nine, it goes in by itself,
Ten, eleven, twelve, it goes out all red,
Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, it'll be a little monkey/prince.

Fyi a "Marie-couche-toi-là" is what you call an "easy lay". Et voilà!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Sex education in song?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 03 Dec 09 - 06:55 AM

Monique - best French lesson I ever had in my entire life. Thank you. & I am one who has been congratulated on his French by a woman police sergeant in Paris to whom I was reporting a pocket-picking on the Metro.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Sex education in song?
From: BTMP
Date: 03 Dec 09 - 12:16 PM

There's the Tom Lehrer song 'Be Prepared' about Boy Scouts, especially when they encounter a similatly-inclined Girl Scout.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Sex education in song?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 03 Dec 09 - 03:21 PM

Hey, Monique! I hope there was no offence taken at my post - There was none intended. For some reason or another (probably to do with various wars) us English seem to blame the French for anything that is slightly risque - French letters, French kissing, er, French fries???

How about 'The good ship venus' as an excercise in sex education? Although we did not get that advanced until our teens:-)

Cheers

DeG

Subject: RE: Folklore: Sex education in song?
From: Lighter
Date: 03 Dec 09 - 03:33 PM

"Weenie" (the usual spelling) is well known in the US though mostly as a childish or jocular euphemism.

Same with "wiener." And, yes, both literally mean a Vienna sausage.
A frankfurter is also sometimes called a wiener or a weenie, though "weenie" is usually jocular.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Sex education in song?
From: Rowan
Date: 03 Dec 09 - 04:28 PM

Although it was in the SE US that I first encountered "Little boys" as the term for "Wieners".

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: Folklore: Sex education in song?
From: Joe_F
Date: 03 Dec 09 - 05:48 PM

In any case, myths about the habits of the French do not properly count as education. Nor can I think of any bawdy song that actually imparts information that might be useful to the young. However, the following limerick does at least embody some conventional wisdom:

There was once a young lady named Sue
Who preferred a stiff drink to a screw,
    But one leads to the other,
    And now she's a mother --
Let that be a lesson to you!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Sex education in song?
From: Monique
Date: 03 Dec 09 - 05:51 PM

David, no offense taken. Sure expressions based on nationalities must be related to history and wars -our cockroaches are "German cockroaches" too while theirs are "French cockroaches".
You have French letters and we have "capotes anglaises" ("English great-coats"), you take French leave and we "leave the English way", you have French fries while we have fries and we have "crème anglaise" ("English cream") while you have custard. I'm very glad that the French kisses are ours and to go back to sexual education without ditty, French women see "the English turn up" every month.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Sex education in song?
From: Rowan
Date: 03 Dec 09 - 06:41 PM

Joe's limerick on the effects of sex reminded me of another, with similar educative import (this time, genetic);

A strapping young blonde from Malarky
had a long affair with a darkie.
The result of this union,
which caused great confusion,
was one black, one white and two khaki.

But, again, it wasn't learned until I was doing Matric. biology.

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: Folklore: Sex education in song?
From: Charley Noble
Date: 03 Dec 09 - 09:13 PM

Well, my brother and I did wonder about the raucous verses of the "Gathering of the Clan" that we heard drifting through the floorboards from the party down below. We never figured it out till years later, if ever. Then there was the verse we'd picked up from "The Jolly Tinker," which we thought went "With his bloody great windshield whipper" which my parents thought was hilarious!

Whatever! We all survived.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Folklore: Sex education in song?
From: Rowan
Date: 03 Dec 09 - 09:27 PM

we have "capotes anglaises" ("English great-coats")
Which immediately brought to mind the sad story of the English widower who wanted to commemorate the death (in Paris) of his wife by wearing a black hat. The French shop assistant to whom he explained this, in faulty French, along with a request for "un capot noire", thought him very sensitive.

But I don't think it ever got into a song.

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: Folklore: Sex education in song?
From: Genie
Date: 04 Dec 09 - 03:12 AM

Amos, it was Peter Alsop who wrote "It's Only A Weewee," but I heard Utah Phillips sing it at the Northwest Folklife Festival a few years ago, when he was the featured artist.


Now, as for kids' propensity for relishing the humor in sex-related ditties without always seeming to comprehend what they're talking (singing) about, I recall my neighbor boys (about 7 to 9) back in Toronto, when I lived there, seeming to think this one was hilarious:

Tom and Jenny sitting in a tree,
Tom says, "Jenny, will you marry me?"
First comes love, then comes marriage,
Then comes Jenny IN a baby carriage.    (emphasis added)

I'd say that last line blooper is an illustration of "unclear on the concept." LOL

Subject: RE: Folklore: Sex education in song?
From: Genie
Date: 04 Dec 09 - 03:14 AM

Oh, and it's not really a children's song, but I'd say my favorite "sex education" song is Belafonte's "Man Piaba."

DK if he wrote it, but when he sang it, everything about the bird and bee became "clear as mud."

Subject: RE: Folklore: Sex education in song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 04 Dec 09 - 04:00 AM

Bert Lloyd used to sing one called 'A Little Piece of Whang' which sums it up perfectly - in biblical terms.
Maybe somebody could oblige.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Folklore: Sex education in song?
From: open mike
Date: 04 Dec 09 - 03:50 PM

Careless Love is an educational song
a good example of info-tainment

and Hot dog is the common name for the frankfurters..
(but non-meat-eaters have tofu pups and veggie dogs)

i am sure there must be songs with references to
hot dogs and buns...with double entendre'

Subject: RE: Folklore: Sex education in song?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 04 Dec 09 - 03:58 PM

The Song of Solomon is a good place to start, especially notable for it's reference to anal in 5:4, though more modern translations sidestep the delicious explicitness of King James etc.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Sex education in song?
From: Bonecruncher
Date: 04 Dec 09 - 07:22 PM

Learned many years ago while at school, to the tune of Gilbert and Sullivan's "A Policeman's Lot". Word supposedly written by Tennyson.

The proportions of a woman that appeal to men's depravity
Are constructed with considerable care.
And what at first appears to be a simple little cavity
Is, in fact, a most elaborate affair.

Now doctors who have studied this feminine phenomena
From many experiments on dames
Have taken all the portions of the feminine abdomina
And given them the most delightful Latin names.

There's the Vulva, the Vagina and the good old Perineum,
And the Hymen which is, sometimes, found in brides.
And there are many others you would like if you could see 'em
Like the Clitoris and many more besides.

Now isn't it a pity when we common mortals chatter,
Of the mysteries to which I have referred,
That we use for such an interesting, complicated matter
Such a short and Anglo-Saxon little word.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Sex education in song?
From: Rowan
Date: 04 Dec 09 - 09:22 PM

I'm sure I've made some errors here but tis is what I recall from the only time I heard it, in 1964, by a fellow student in our botany class.

When the Lord made Adam, they say he laughed and sang
as he sewed him up the middle with a little bit of whang
but when the Lord had finished, he found he'd measured wrong,
'cause the little bit of whang he'd left was several inches long,

And when the Lord made Mother Eve he finished with a snort
for the little piece of whang he'd used was several inches short
The Lord then said "Oh stuff it! I'll let the matter hang;
she can fight it out with Adam for his little bit of whang.

Then follows a third verse which explains the world's trouble and strife being due to the two of them and their descendants fighting over that little bit of whang.

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: Folklore: Sex education in song?
From: Monique
Date: 05 Dec 09 - 03:29 AM

I found the third verse on line
"It leaves an awful crack," said he, "but I don't give a dang,
She can fight it out with Adam for that little piece of wang";
And ever since that ancient day when human life began,
There's been a constant wage of strife between a woman and a man
For the woman swears to have that piece that on his belly hang,
To fill that awful crack that's left when the Lord ran out of wang.
So let us not be selfish, boys, with what the women lack,
But keep them busy on the wang to fill that crack,
For the good Lord never intended that it should idle hang
When he placed on Adam's belly that little piece of wang.

from there

I also found that. Very... educational!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Sex education in song?
From: Bob the Postman
Date: 05 Dec 09 - 06:37 PM

First time you try to doodle
Take my advice
Put a little spit on your straw
You can doodle so nice

Doodle Hole Blues

Subject: RE: Folklore: Sex education in song?
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 05 Dec 09 - 08:21 PM

Bonecrusher-
The entire verse (or song) is in Digitrad--you just posted verse 1.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Sex education in song?
From: Rowan
Date: 05 Dec 09 - 11:38 PM

Goodonya, Monique.

And the tune I heard it sung to was the most common one to The Ball of Kerriemuir.

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: Folklore: Sex education in song?
From: semi-submersible
Date: 06 Dec 09 - 06:48 PM

Rowan, my Mom learned another version of the limerick above.

There was a young girl named Malarkey
Who had an affair with a darkie.
The result of her sins
Was quadruplets, not twins:
One black, and one white, and two khaki.


In another thread, Guest Annraoi posted a version in which one "Starkey" had triplets. Farther down Penny S mentions its more usual Punnet Square punch line. (That's how I located it by Mudcat Search for "two khaki".)

(Does it matter whether there's an e in Malarky or Malarkey? Guess not.)


With the rhyme in which one of the couple ends up IN the baby carriage, at my Canadian elementary school in the '70s, we children knew that "with a baby carriage" was the real lyric, but "in" made a far more ludicrous image.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Sex education in song?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 07 Dec 09 - 04:02 AM

The limerick about the

'quadruplets, not twins,
One black, one white & two khaki'

is sometimes called "Mendel's Law", which it is fancifully supposed by some to illustrate.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Sex education in song?
From: ToeRag
Date: 07 Dec 09 - 08:58 AM

It's hard to get the big picture when you have such a small screen

Subject: RE: Folklore: Sex education in song?
From: Rowan
Date: 07 Dec 09 - 04:48 PM

Limericks are known to be well entrenched in the variation due to oral transmission.

And I reckon MtheGM knows that a blonde is unlikely to be heterozygous for melanin production in the skin; discussion of the improbability of a blonde participating in a true F1 cross (producing the required 1:2:1 ratios of homozygous "white":heterzygous khaki:homozygous black) is what gave the limerick its supposedly educative value.

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: Folklore: Sex education in song?
From: Genie
Date: 07 Dec 09 - 06:54 PM

semi-submersible, "here comes Mary in a baby carriage" makes a far more ludicrous image than does "... with a baby carriage," but I'd say one reason it's so ludicrous is that it seems to belie a total lack of comprehension of the connection between kissing, love, marriage, and baby carriages. ; D

Subject: RE: Folklore: Sex education in song?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 07 Dec 09 - 10:00 PM

==And I reckon MtheGM knows that a blonde is unlikely to be heterozygous for melanin production in the skin; discussion of the improbability of a blonde participating in a true F1 cross (producing the required 1:2:1 ratios of homozygous "white":heterzygous khaki:homozygous black) is what gave the limerick its supposedly educative value.==

Of course — absorbed these indispensable facts with my mother's milk. Reckon on, Rowan... Not sure, mind, where you find a 'blonde' in the limerick under discussion. His colouring/complexion specified in versions quoted; but not hers...

Subject: RE: Folklore: Sex education in song?
From: Rowan
Date: 07 Dec 09 - 11:16 PM

His colouring/complexion specified in versions quoted; but not hers...
Except in mine, of 6.41pm on 3 Dec, which is how it was heard when I was a student in Melbourne 40 odd years ago.

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: Folklore: Sex education in song?
From: GUEST,dubhghaill
Date: 07 Dec 09 - 11:28 PM

In Irish we sing:
Tá mo stoca 's mo bhróga ag an Rógaire Dubh,
'S mo naipicín phóca le bliain 's an lá inniu.

Dhá bhfeicfeása Máire taobh eile den tsruth,
Is a dá cois in airde ag an Rógaire Dubh!

The black-haired rogue has my stockings and shoes
and my pocket handkerchief (an allusion to virginity) for a year and a day

If you would see Mary on the other side of the stream
you'd see her two legs raised up high by the black-haired rogue.

It's a very common jig tune, and they play it unknowingly at most music session.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Sex education in song?
From: Barbara
Date: 07 Dec 09 - 11:29 PM

And if you spelled it "wang" instead of "whang" you could find several versions in the DT, starting with this one: A Little Piece of Wang
Blessings,
Barbara

Subject: RE: Folklore: Sex education in song?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 08 Dec 09 - 12:23 AM

Rowan - ah yes, thank you. Always just a young woman named Starkie in my versions. Trust the Oz's to get up to Mallarkey; & specify blonde...