Historical Children's Songs

Subject: RE: BS: Historical Childrens' Songs
From: The Walrus at work
Date: 19 Jul 02 - 01:46 PM

GUEST adavis,

"...I've heard British chilluns say "a tissue, a tissue," but that's likely to be very modern..." Why so? "a-tissue" is supposed to be sneezing, why do you assume that that is more modern than "ashes"? also Reference is made to "Here we go round the mulberry bush", although this is a children's song/dance/game, IIRC this refers to the planting of mulberry trees in the exercise yards of British prisons.

Walrus

Subject: RE: BS: Historical Childrens' Songs
From: Micca
Date: 19 Jul 02 - 07:27 PM

I would commend to you Iona and Peter Opies book " the Singing Game" which completly debunks the Plague connection of this song, and which is full of interesting and well documented Chidrens games with their histories

Subject: RE: BS: Historical Childrens' Songs
From:
Date: 20 Jul 02 - 12:42 AM

Walrus -- "A tissue" is onomatopoetic, basically identical with "atchoo," but subject to some drift towards the thing you sneeze into, the tissue, right? Kleenex is fairly modern, is what I meant.

What's the source of your info on the mulberry-bush song? Fascinating, if it moved from what we can assume is a fairly rough bunch to the children's play-yard. Why were prisoners planting mulberry bushes? The fruit's only barely edible (tho' like dandelion wine, there's always someone to rave about it).

IIRC? I'm green -- I don't understand this.

Best,

Adam

Subject: RE: BS: Historical Childrens' Songs
From: GUEST,JTT
Date: 20 Jul 02 - 04:53 AM

The English say "Atishoo" when they sneeze. Not a tissue; I don't think they had tissues in the 14th century ;)

Subject: RE: BS: Historical Childrens' Songs
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)
Date: 20 Jul 02 - 01:27 PM

"Atishoo; atichoo: A representation of the characteristic noises accompanying a sneeze. 1878 Punch: A cough tears your lungs, but a sneeze tears you through....Atschoo! Atischoo!" "1892, Zangwell, Childrens Ghetto...Ezequiel sneezed. It was a convulsive 'atichoo.'" Oxford English Dictionary. Atishoo! was used in the children's rhyme Rinr-Around-The-Rosey in England by Kate Greenway (see thread 49672: Rosey

Subject: RE: BS: Historical Childrens' Songs
From: Peter K (Fionn)
Date: 13 Aug 02 - 08:57 PM

Salad bowls, melting pots, goober peas, carrots... I'm beginning to feel quite peckish. I realise that one or two of these are as sinful as Adam's apple, but presumably Wilco is on safe ground with the potatoe, so memorably invented by Dan Quayle?

For a song concerning more recent history, what about "Stange Fruit" about which there is at least one thread here somewhere.

Subject: RE: Historical Childrens' Songs
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 14 Aug 02 - 11:53 AM

What would American history be without the gold rush(es)?

Sweet Betsy from Pike (of course)
The Lousy (dirty) Miner (which is in the DT)
and any number of others.

Then, of the general westward movement:

I'm Goin' to the West

I'm Gonna Hit That Oregon Trail This Comin' Fall (more modern times, but the same phenomenon as the migration a hundred years earlier)

And of course, how could one pass up the Dust Bowl times, so copiously portrayed by Woody Guthrie?

Dustbowl Refugee
Talking Dustbowl Blues
So Long, It's Been Good to Know You (in its original, Dustbowl incarnation, before it was emasculated for commercial purposes)
...and maybe even..
Tom Joad (which the writer of The Grapes of Wrath said told the story of the novel more succinctly and better than he had in the novel.)

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: Historical Childrens' Songs
From: Mrrzy
Date: 14 Aug 02 - 03:24 PM

Paddy on the railroad, definitely.

In 1814 we took a little trip, something something down the mighty Mississipp' (something about Old Hickory?)

Ring around the rosy is TOO a plague song. What are the data upon which you base your It's an Urban Legend thing, O Adam Guest?

Tom Joad isn't history, it's fiction.

but Pastures of Plenty, and also Deportees would be good.

How about Two Brothers on their way, one wore blue and one wore grey? That is how I used to remember who won the Civil War...

Keep us posted, this sounds like fun!

Subject: RE: Historical Childrens' Songs
From: Mrrzy
Date: 14 Aug 02 - 03:39 PM

(Creep - OK, I stand corrected on Ring around a Rosie, having seen the Urban Legends debunking thereof. What about The House That Jack Built - is that still about the British political situation of the time?)

Subject: RE: Historical Childrens' Songs
From: GUEST
Date: 06 Dec 03 - 12:04 AM

In 1814 we took a little trip
along with colonel Jackson down the Might Mississip
we took a little bacon and we took a little beans
we met the bloody British in the town of New Orleans

Chorus:
We fired our guns and the British kept a comin
wasn't ney as many as they was a-while a go
we fired once more and they began a-runnin
on down the Mississippi to the gulf of mexico


Something like
Old Hickry said we could take em by surprise
if we held our fire till we looked em in the eyes
so we held our fire till we really seen em well
when we touched our powder off we really gave them -- well

Chorus:

Can't remember the other verses.

Subject: RE: Historical Childrens' Songs
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 06 Dec 03 - 12:19 AM

Guest Dec. 6, '03:

That's the Battle of New Orleans, by Jimmy Driftwood. (click on title to get to the DT listing)

~ Becky in Tucson

Subject: RE: Historical Children's Songs
From: keberoxu
Date: 19 Jul 16 - 02:58 PM

This thread has two posts for the song about the "Praties." I recognize it from a recording by Susan Reed, the singing harp player, from my childhood (Elektra label, was it?).

"The Anthology of the Potato," Dublin 1961 (limited edition), includes this song, which it credits to an appearance in "The Midland Tribune"; it is printed on page 78.

Pardon the duplication, please. Like the versions that precede it in this thread, the song has three verses; the slight variations in words here and there might be useful, or at least interesting, to someone.

OH! THE PRATIES THEY ARE SMALL OVER HERE

[no known author; 19th century Ireland]

Oh! the Praties they are small over here -- over here
Oh! the Praties they are small over here,
Oh! the Praties they are small, and we dug them in the fall,
And we ate them skins and all, full of fear -- full of fear.

Oh! I wish that we were geese in the morn -- in the morn,
Oh! I wish that we were geese in the morn,
Oh! I wish that we were geese, for they live and die at peace,
Till the hour of their decease, eatin' corn -- eatin' corn.

Oh! we're down into the dust, over here -- over here
Oh! we're down into the dust, over here,
Oh! we're down into the dust, but the Lord in whom we trust,
Will soon give us crumb or crust over here -- over here.