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Clementine's shoe size? DigiTrad: CLEMENTINE CLEMENTINE (2) CLEMENTINE (3) CLEMENTINE (4) DOWN BY THE RIVER MY DARLING 39 Related threads: (origins) Origins/Lyrics: Oh, My Darling Clementine (36) (origins) Origins: Oh my darling Clementine (9) Ovio / Clementine (tune origins) (13) Lyr Add: Clementine/Catspaw49 (14) More Clementine verses?? (9) My Darling Clementine (7) (closed) |
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Subject: RE: Clemantine's shoe size? From: Mrrzy Date: 11 Oct 19 - 12:50 PM Anybody else have Tom Lehrer's version in their heads now? Herring bo o o o xes sansa to o o o pses... |
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Subject: RE: Clemantine's shoe size? From: GUEST,Starship Date: 11 Oct 19 - 02:43 PM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0Wa_tnvyag There ya go. |
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Subject: RE: Clemantine's shoe size? From: GUEST,Starship Date: 11 Oct 19 - 04:12 PM It seems that the presumption here has been that the shoes were specifically hers. Maybe they were someone else's and she was just wearing them for some unknown reason. Then again, maybe they were hers, in which case she'd save a bundle on skis and snowshoes. |
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Subject: RE: Clemantine's shoe size? From: GUEST,Grishka Date: 11 Oct 19 - 06:31 PM Starship, if the "omniscient narrator" says "her shoes", we must accept that. However, they may be too big for her feet at the moment, made in advance for her wedding ceremony. Or she may have been a shoemaker, trained only to produce one size, before she switched to duckling driver. Who ate the herrings? Wouldn't they have fresh fish from the canyon? |
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Subject: RE: Clemantine's shoe size? From: GUEST,OhmPossum Date: 01 Nov 20 - 08:38 AM My father sung this in boy scouts which would have been in the 1940s. He talked about this and said the words are "Light she WASN'T like a fairy and her shoes were number nine herring boxes without topses sandals were for Clementine." Was all saying she was a very large girl. There were NO shoes in her size so she had to use number 9 herring boxes as sandals. The thing that has probably changed is how fish are packed. It isn't a shoe size it is a box size for an individual fish. Fish were packed in San Francisco and shipped to the mines. |
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Subject: RE: Clemantine's shoe size? From: Mrrzy Date: 01 Nov 20 - 09:21 AM A cupla thing snicker Huge feet is my verdict |
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Subject: RE: Clemantine's shoe size? From: Phil Edwards Date: 01 Nov 20 - 10:51 AM Thankyou so much for reviving the earworm to end all earworms, Tom Lehrer's multiple-pastiche Clementine. There goes my afternoon. "Era leggera E come un fairy E s'wear shoes numero nine Herring bo-o-o-oxes Senza to-o-o-opses Sendale per Clementina Si! per Clementina Si! per Clementina Sendale per Clementina Sendale per Clementin'" It goes on. Oh, how it goes on. |
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Subject: RE: Clemantine's shoe size? From: Snuffy Date: 02 Nov 20 - 03:59 AM Just to throw in a further red herring . Doesn't "foaming brine" imply salt water: ocean or tidal river? |
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Subject: RE: Clemantine's shoe size? From: Joe Offer Date: 02 Nov 20 - 08:01 AM Well, the Sacramento River becomes tidal not too far downstream from Sacramento, so there's briny water an easy horseback ride from Sacramento. Sacramento gets the occasional sea lion or whale, but not regularly. Lake Clementine is 50 miles upstream from Sacramento on the American River, not far from me. No brine here. |
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Subject: RE: Clemantine's shoe size? From: Mrrzy Date: 02 Nov 20 - 10:02 AM Love that pestering sister verse, Phil Edwards! |
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Subject: RE: Clementine's shoe size? From: GUEST,Clementine Date: 25 Sep 21 - 06:06 PM I don't think the song is meant to be taken seriously enough for her to be seriously described as having delicately small feet. The singer is in love, so he thinks her extra large feet are just lovely--women were hard to come by in that time and place. He's not in love enough to risk drowning trying to save her though, so he's dreadful sorry til he kisses her sister. It's a very tongue in cheek song, and women in tongue-in-cheek songs just don't have cute feet. (Someone will probably write a tongue in cheek song about me some day; I just hope he doesn't let me drown.) I wound up here because I wondered what a herring box looked like (thanks, google,) but I'm quite positive that it would be at least close to the size of a shoe box. Or a cereal box. I mean...she tripped over a *splinter* and fell. Moral: Don't wear boxy-looking shoes. |
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Subject: RE: Clementine's shoe size? From: GUEST,Clementine Date: 25 Sep 21 - 06:11 PM Forgot to mention! I've always heard it as In a *cabin* in a canyon And that makes so much more sense to me. Building a little cabin to live in while prospecting for gold makes sense. Living in a cave with your daughters is just....weird. Even if they have huge feet. |
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