meaning - musha ring dumma do dumma da

Subject: RE: meaning - musha ring dumma do dumma da
From: Jo Taylor
Date: 01 Feb 99 - 07:35 PM

Rick - several messages back, could it be that you refer to 'BEEP skiddely ogen dogen pogo ske doogen daten'? Other parts like 'kama la kama la kama la vista' and 'eeny meeny macareny ooh ah ooha la meeny'?? If so it's a 'mind-worm' that's been bothering me for a couple of years...can anyone fill in the rest of it? or are those all the bits? It's a question & response sort of song. Do you all get mind-worms?
Jo, who's just caught this one again - thanks Rick... :-/

Subject: RE: meaning - musha ring dumma do dumma da
From:
Date: 01 Feb 99 - 07:20 PM

Damn it joe, you had to remind me about that! Which in turn reminded me that Pete sang: Risselty rosselty, hey bombosity nickety nackety retricule quality willoby walloby now, now, now. He claimed it was from Aunt Emma Dusenbury, but I bet it was some communist plot.

My all time favourite nonsence (or politically cyphered) chorus is that sung by Peter Stampfel on "Mr. Spaceman". It can be found on the Holy Modal Rounders first album. It puts your Pictish fertility choruses to shame, Sandy.

Subject: RE: meaning - musha ring dumma do dumma da
From: Roger in Baltimore
Date: 01 Feb 99 - 07:16 PM

Thanks, Joe, you echo my thoughts. I was thinking old Pete also sang somethin' called Wimoweh. I suspect that isn't a word in any language, either.

Roger in Baltimore

Subject: RE: meaning - musha ring dumma do dumma da
From: Joe Offer
Date: 01 Feb 99 - 06:45 PM

Rick Fielding - Isn't it your beloved Pete Seeger who inflicted "Abiyoyo" upon an unsuspecting world? I think I have that song on five different CD's. Listening to it once is quite enough. I like Pete Seeger very much, but not that song.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: meaning - musha ring dumma do dumma da
From: Sandy Paton
Date: 01 Feb 99 - 05:30 PM

C'mon guys! We know they're all based on ancient Pictish fertility chants such as "Hi-diddle-i-diddle-i-fie, diddle-i-diddle-i-day." Part of the great Jungian collective-unconscious we happily share. Pre-viagara stuff, and no side-effects.

Sandy

Subject: RE: meaning - musha ring dumma do dumma da
From: Barry Finn
Date: 01 Feb 99 - 01:39 PM

Sean, a woman I used to sing with 15 years or so ago had the same theory you mentioned, but I haven't seen or heard from her since. She went to Scotland got a new name, a new husband, new band & now sings stuff that even she doesn't understand. Look above do you see the words to "mare's eat oats and doe's eat oats and little lambs eat ivy" that in itself makes for a convincing theory, although I think that Richie knew that when he posted it but many others have said that they haven't a clue as to what those words meant. Barry

Subject: RE: meaning - musha ring dumma do dumma da
From: Sean Mac Ruaraidh
Date: 01 Feb 99 - 01:02 PM

Well, you may say it is nonsense but I have a theory that these garbled lines once meant something and that the meaning was lost in translation from another language or dialect. These gibberish fillers may well have at one point been phonetically translatable but now there is no chance as too many years have passed.

Could 'musha ring umma do umma do' at one time been a bit of Gaelic Irish or did the writer simply run out of words, or is it just something that has the right sound about it.

Its lines like this that might give folk music a bad name in some social groupings - I heard an uneducated English chap refer to it as Hey Nonny Noo music - sounds more like a reference to Much Ado About Nothing than folk music 'Into Hey nonny, nonny..' My dad calls some types of folk music 'diddle-dee-dee' but thats a direct reference to the sound of some of the bands and is onomatapaeic.

Anyway unless someone comes with the goods we can specualte forever. I think too you'll find that 'musha ...' etc. is not even in all versions of that song.

Sean

Subject: RE: meaning - musha ring dumma do dumma da
From: Bill D
Date: 01 Feb 99 - 12:35 PM

and, for a complete explanation, click here

Swinburn's tongue-in-cheek response to Tennyson's The Higher Pantheism

Subject: RE: meaning - musha ring dumma do dumma da
From: Bill D
Date: 01 Feb 99 - 12:24 PM

a few lines on deeper meaning...

"now 'salagadoola' means 'mooshakaboolaroo', but the thinga-a-ma-bob that does the job, is 'Bibbity-bobbity-boo'"

Subject: RE: meaning - musha ring dumma do dumma da
From: Ritchie
Date: 01 Feb 99 - 11:04 AM

ish shimpul reely jush lishun too "mairzy dotes an does eet dotes an lickle ams eet ivy a kidll eet ivy too woodnt yoo?" an it will all becum so much cleera.

lorra luv

Big Richard

Subject: RE: meaning - musha ring dumma do dumma da
From: rick fielding
Date: 31 Jan 99 - 12:16 PM

"musha, musha...." before we blame the Irish (or even grandparents who were Little Richard fans) can anyone remember: "iss biddly oten doten bobo". I can swear I heard my mother (singing?) that when I was an impressionable youth. And who of course could forget: "ooh eeh, ooh, ahh, ahh, ting tang wallawalla bing bang". Thank God I discovered Pete Seeger before it was too late!

Subject: RE: meaning - musha ring dumma do dumma da
From:
Date: 31 Jan 99 - 11:55 AM

NOBODY in the world is SO young that he HEARD about Little Richard from his GRANDAD for cripes sake. Now I know there IS a parallel universe out there mocking our own. Ian, you make me feel so old!--John

Subject: RE: meaning - musha ring dumma do dumma da
From: Ian Kirk (inactive)
Date: 31 Jan 99 - 11:44 AM

A more up to date translation may be - Wop Bop a Loo Bop a Lop Bam Boom - Little Richard borrowed it and used it in Tutti Frutti a Rock and Roll song my grandad told me about

Ian

Subject: RE: meaning - musha ring dumma do dumma da
From: Liam's Brother
Date: 31 Jan 99 - 10:43 AM

Roger is entirely correct. The meaning is... no meaning.

Subject: RE: meaning - musha ring dumma do dumma da
From: Roger in Baltimore
Date: 31 Jan 99 - 07:58 AM

Mryan,

Irish music is filled with "nonsense" phrases like the one above. They tend to be part of choruses. I don't think they have any meaning or purpose except to fill up melodic space.

Roger in Baltimore

Subject: meaning - musha ring dumma do dumma da
From: mryan
Date: 31 Jan 99 - 07:30 AM

Does anyone know what the lyrics "musha ring dumma do dumma da" mean? They are from the song Whiskey in the Jar.

If you have any idea of a translation, I would appreciate it. Thanks.