One of the difficulties of getting through childhood was being made to sing some pretty weird songs back in primary school...songs which most of the children would probably rather not have sung, I suspect, although it remains debatable. Most of the boys in particular were reluctant to join in, as I recall.

One was "Bingo".

"There was a farmer had a dog and Bingo was his name-O!
B-I-N-G-O...B-I-N-G-O...B-I-N-G-0...and Bingo was his name-O!"

You sing that again and again and again till the teacher has mercy and finally lets you stop...or the bell rings. Singing it more than ten times in a row could really get to be a pain! It's even worse when they make you do it as a "round", and I suspect that they may do something rather like that in Chinese prisons to this day to break down the will of prisoners who won't confess.

Then there was "Reuben and Rachel", a really insidious little number because it required the boys to sing one part and the girls to sing the other, back and forth, thus presumably assisting us in establishing our future societal gender roles...

Girls:

"Reuben, Reuben, I've been thinking...what a fine world this would be...if the men were all transported far beyond the Northern Sea"

Boys' answer:

"Rachel, Rachel, I've been thinking...what a strange world this would be...if the men were all transported far beyond the Northern Sea"

It gets even worse after that! Most of us boys would rather have eaten sawdust for a week than sung that song...but we had no choice about the matter. You could not pass Grade 3 without singing the stupid thing.

Anyone else got some golden memories along this line?