The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #115045   Message #2458935
Posted By: Azizi
06-Oct-08 - 11:56 PM
Thread Name: Not Last Night But The Night Before-rhyme
Subject: RE: Not Last Night ButThe Night Before-rhyme
There's also a {probably much newer than the 1950s} handclap rhyme that starts with or includes the line "not last night but the night before" but is quite different from the "24 robbers" version. See this example:


"Here is a song we used to do on the playground in Birmingham, AL back in the 80s: Last night and the night before I met my boyfriend at the candy store He brought me ice cream he brought me cake he brought me home with a stomachache mama mama i feel sick call the doctor quick quick quick doctor doctor will i die close you eyes and count to five i said a one, a two, a three, a four, a five I'm alive [Optional part] we would do sometimes (a little risque for little girls): see that house on top of that hill that's where me and my baby gon' live we gon' cook some cornbread cook some meat come on baby let's go to bed and do the boom boom boom.
-Joi; 3/23/2008; http://www.cocojams.com/handclap_rhymes.htm


**
African American girls {ages around 6-12 years} in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania {from at least the mid 1980s to this date} recite this rhyme while doing nandclaps {2 person; three persons, or two sets of partners handclaps}.

**

I like to think of children's rhymes as belonging to certain "families". In my opinion, I consider the "Not Last Night/24 robbers at my door" and the "Not Last Night 3 tomcats/pancake on their bums" rhymes to belong to the same family of rhymes, though I see them as distant relatives.

However, I don't consider the "Not last night...met my boyfriend at the candy store" rhymes to be part of that same family. Well, perhaps they used to be part of the same family. But, in my opinion, there are too many differences between these two groups of rhymes to consider them still part of the same family.** Instead, I believe that the "met my boyfriend at the candy store" rhyme as cited above belongs to the very large "Shimmy Shimmy CocoPa", I Love Coffee/I Love Tea"; "Down Down Baby" family of rhymes.*

*For examples of "Shimmy Shimmy Co Co Pa", "I Love Coffee I Love Tea", and "Down Down Baby" rhymes, visit Cocojams Handclap Rhymes page, and Cocojams' Movement Rhymes page.

**I know that there are often significant differences in human families, and that's all good-sometimes anyway. But when it comes to song/rhyme families, I think that too many differences in words mean that the rhymes shouldn't be considered as a part of the same group}.