I should also add that I got the 2005 example of the "updated Little Sally Walker" from a group of girls who were part of an after school coed group my daughter and I conduct [in various incarnations].
The purpose of the group is to explore the creative & performing arts potential of traditional, contemporary, and originally composed [mine] game songs, rhymes, and chants.

During one session I asked the group of children what games did they do in a circle {I had learned that the terms "game songs" and "rhymes" would elicit no responses}. The only true game song that they mentioned that was not a hand clap rhyme was "Goin to Kentucky." This is off topic but the words they sang with accompanying motions were *

We're goin to Kentucky
we're goin to the fair
to see the sister Rita
with the flowers in her hair.
Oh, shake it Sister Rita
shake it all you can.
All the boys are watching you
so do the best you can.
Rumble to the bottom
rumble to the top
turn around
and touch the ground
until you holler
S-T-O-P
spelllls
Stop!

-snip-

I started to say that I was surprised to learn that these children did not know the standard version of "Little Sally Walker". That version of that old old game song may have finally died out among African Americans [in Pittsburgh area anyway]. I ahould note that my early 30 year old daughter's generation played the standard version. And she and her friends didn't get it from me because I didn't know the "Little Sally Walker" version. I sang the "Little Sally Ann/sittin in the sand" words {which makes perfect sense since I am from the ocean community of Atlantic City, New Jersey}.

* The standard line in "Goin to Kentucky" is "to see a senorita".
However, because there are very few people of Spanish descent in Pittsburgh, children don't know the word "senorita". Therefore they used folk etymology and changed that unfamiliar word to words that made sense to them. In Braddock, PA, a town about 12 miles from Pittsburgh, children sang "to see the Sister Reena".

"Goin to Kentucky" was clearly a girls only song, as evidenced by the children's confusion about what to call the boy who was randomly picked {by the center person closing her eyes, putting her right hand over her eyes, stretching her left arm out and spining around while she points}. Since our game songs/rhyme groups are co-ed we had to come up with a standard name for a boy who might be picked. So we [well, really I] chose the name "Brother Rico" [because it sounded Spanish, and seems contemporary 'hip']. We also changed the line "with the flowers in her hair" to "with the flowers in his hand"-because no self-respecting boy would want to be seen with flowers in his hair...

Besides, I figured maybe the idea about giving flowers to girls would seep into those 5 year old to 9 year old boys' memory banks so that when they got old enough to date they'd automatically remember to give girls flowers.

LOL!!



Azizi