jodies/cadences, especially non-us cadence calls

Subject: jodies/cadences
From:
Date: 17 Nov 02 - 11:22 PM

I wonder if 'catters can help here. I've got an M.A. candidate in folklore, writing on "jodies," semi-musical chants used to coordinate movement in training US troops. There are traditional ones, new ones being invented, some clean, some obscene-- violence, racism, sexism, what you'd expect. He's not interested in sanitizing the sample (but the services are). The student has already collected a lot of them, from WWII to the present, from various branches, and he's interested in variants of those he's already got, as well as new ones. He's especially interested in whether any such thing occurs outside the US -- so the call goes out especially to those in the UK, especially if you have military experience. If you offer a jody text, please give place and year you heard it. Just to prime the pump, I'll paste in a famous one.


C-130 Rolling down the strip.
Airborne daddy momma/ranger on a one-way trip/gonna take a little trip.
Mission unspoken, destination unknown.
They don't even know if they'll ever come home.
Stand up hook up, shuffle to the door.
Jump right out and count to four.
If my main don't open wide.
I've got a reserve right by my side.
If that one don't open too.
Look out ground, I'm a comin through
Pin my medals upon my chest,
and bury me in the front leaning rest.
If I die in a combat zone
Box me up and ship me home.


Adam

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Thread #53735   Message #829195
Posted By: GUEST,[e-mail]
18-Nov-02 - 02:58 PM
Thread Name: jodies/cadences, especially non-us cadence calls
Subject: non-us cadence calls

I'm helping a student with research on what are called "jodies" in the US military; they're used to maintain cadence in marching or physical training (the official term is "cadence" or "cadence call)." Several 'catters alerted to a previous thread where a lot of US material was shared, and suggested I start a new one specifying non-US material. Any non-US catters have experience with marching cadences in their own country's services? British Isles? Canada? Iceland? Vatican City?

Adam

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Messages from multiple threads combined. Watch the message titles to see which message came from which thread.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: jodies/cadences
From: artbrooks
Date: 17 Nov 02 - 11:44 PM

Not a new topic...look here for a lengthy discussion.

Subject: RE: jodies/cadences
From:
Date: 18 Nov 02 - 11:05 AM

Whoops -- the subject's so obscure, I hadn't thought to check. Thanks. But reading through that thread, I still don't see much from outside the US. UK? Canada? Germany?

Adam

Subject: RE: jodies/cadences
From: artbrooks
Date: 18 Nov 02 - 02:44 PM

"Jodie" is pretty much a US term, I think. You may want to start a new thread called "Non-US cadence calls".

BTW, aren't MA candidates supposed to do their OWN research?

Subject: RE: jodies/cadences
From:
Date: 18 Nov 02 - 02:54 PM

No, it's part of the thesis director's job to alert them to the resources -- though you're right, there's a line to be observed between assisting and doing it for them. If the topic is dullsville, it's hard not to be perfunctory about it (shove printed bibliography at them). I find this one interesting, so I'm willing to do a little investigation on my own. Purely for the sake of ethics, the student will credit me for any material I send his way (as he will have to credit many, many others -- all very typical for folklore studies). Thanks for the good suggestion -- I'll do it.

Adam

Subject: RE: jodies/cadences
From: Jeri
Date: 18 Nov 02 - 04:46 PM

I've never heard that jodies spread to any other countries, but others probably have more knowledge.

I don't know that there's anyone collecting them these days, but it's a fertile field. Each unit seems to have its own set of variants and I'd guess brand new ones are spread when singers learn them and transfer. If your student lives anywhere near an army post or naval base with marine units (the Air Force and Navy don't seem to march very often once folks get out of training), it might be interesting to get permission from the Public Affairs Officer to interview folks. The best thing would be to walk with them when they march or run along during PT carrying a recording device. It may sound silly and be a bit impractical but they don't seem to sing cadences or jodies when they aren't in formation.

Subject: RE: jodies/cadences
From: Joe_F
Date: 18 Nov 02 - 07:34 PM

In the early 1950s I owned a textbook written by & for pacifists about how to go to prison (not a dull page in it). It referred to tales of prisoners' wives' unfaithfulness as "`Joe, the grinder' stories". I have often wondered if "Joe the grinder" was not the original name of the character, and "Jody Grinder" a corruption of it. In some dialects they would be pronounced about the same.

Subject: RE: jodies/cadences
From:
Date: 18 Nov 02 - 08:26 PM

Cool! I just checked on that, and yeah, Joe D. Grinder/Jody Grinder seems to be a trickster figure from toasts and such, s-thing like Stagger Lee/Stagolee/Stackolee. He always gets the best of guys who are playing by the rules. Previously, I'd heard a rumor that somebody named Jody got on the wrong side of Pvt. Duckworth (who's credited with inventing the cadence, although it seems clear now that it has something to do with the call-and-response field-hollers that contributed to the blues). Guess that won't wash. There were songs by Irwin Lowry and Quincy Jones, one by Merle Haggard (found the lyric for the last, but not for the others -- anybody heard them?)

Adam

Subject: RE: non-us cadence calls
From: Gervase
Date: 19 Nov 02 - 02:04 AM

Just not used in the British Army, I'm afraid. The only time I ever heard someone trying to break into one in a training cadre, the Colour Sgt came down on him like a ton of bricks and told him in no uncertain terms that, to coin a phrase, "Some people might need to make a lot of noise to keep in time, but we most certainly did not, so would he be so awfully kind as to bin it!"

Subject: RE: non-us cadence calls
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 19 Nov 02 - 05:26 AM

Seems to be a special U.S. Army institution; never heard it in other armies.
In the German army the drill sarge calls a cadence of 8 paces with: "Links - links - links, zwei, drei, vier" [left - left - left, two, three, four] to break the rookies into one.
Afterwards a song may be used to keep cadence; so every platoon in my boot camp had a favourite song it could be identified with at a greater distance.

Greetings to all swinging servicemen!

Wilfried

Subject: RE: non-us cadence calls
From: KingBrilliant
Date: 19 Nov 02 - 05:57 AM

My grandfather was in the UK army in WW1, and he told me that they did have marching chants to keep in time. His favourite was "Left, Left, I-had-a-good-job-but-I Left"
Maybe they needed the chant to keep in time because it was a wartime army rather than an army of career soldiers.
We used the same chant a lot when Hammerite was small & we were walking several miles home from parties or festivals. It set up a rhythm and kept her going at a decent. Works reasonably well on drunken husbands too.

Subject: RE: non-us cadence calls
From: greg stephens
Date: 19 Nov 02 - 08:07 AM

Not a sevice one, but a good one from my youth. I use it a lot with kids for music/performance workshops.
Me one
me two
me three
me four
me five
me six
me seven
me eight
me nine
me ten
me hat
me stick
me forward back
me side together
me one etc etc.

You march conventionally, left foot going down on one, two, three etc.
For "me hat. me stick" you stop, and mime doffing a top hat and holding a fancy silverknobbed stick.
"forward back" the left leg is extended in front(heel strikes ground) and then brought back.
"Me side together" left leg steps to side and returns.
Then march off again on "me one".
This is invaluable when making a long walk home from the pub in convivial company.

Subject: RE: non-us cadence calls
From: KingBrilliant
Date: 19 Nov 02 - 08:16 AM

Hmmmmm - so long walks home whilst over-slaked seems to be a recurring theme. Is the US army partial to a bit of a tipple then???

Subject: RE: non-us cadence calls
From: Mr Happy
Date: 19 Nov 02 - 08:19 AM

during the tourist season in chester 9[uk], there's often crocodiles of school children being marched around the town by chaps dressed as roman centurions.

the 'centurion' keeps all the kids instep with him by chanting & its an amusing site ti see & hear them passing in twos' all chanting

'sinister/dexter/sinister/dexter!'

Subject: RE: jodies/cadences
From:
Date: 19 Nov 02 - 11:27 AM

The student I mentioned has started a website with texts and analyses -- it's a work in progress. For those interested, it's linked from the Missouri Folklore Soceity homepage:

http://www2.truman.edu/~adavis/mfs.html

I'll cross-list this on the other cadence-thread.

Adam

Subject: RE: jodies/cadences
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 01 Dec 02 - 11:03 PM

Nice attempt kid - but your journey has barely begun - the pages you link to have done it better than you. And they cite their sources.

For starters go to the HTML Hell site.

http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/html-hell.html

Check out the fifth offence down - backgrounds and text - do you really expect the casual reader to highlight your text so it can standout from the background?

Good Luck, Have Fun
Sincerely,
Gargoyle

Subject: RE: jodies/cadences, especially non-us cadence calls
From: GUEST,TW
Date: 03 Jan 10 - 02:22 PM

In the UK there aren't really this sort of thing though when I was an army cadet we had one called something like "The lady in red" basically it lists lots of different ladies in lots of different colours but each one has a problem, usually along sexual lines.
One example is that the lady in pink/ is sure to make your finger stink.

Not sure if that was an export to us though and Im struggling to remember the words if I'm honest.

When I was around 14 I remember this marching cadence from when we marched distance:
Left, right. Your wrong it's not Right it's Left, and you'll find it: Left right where you left it. That's Right.

Maybe we just got some slack cause we were kids. But the remark about the C/Sgt is true. I remember when somebody suggested it to our corp. His reply was along the lines of "If we all started shouting as we marched along what would be the point in wearing DPM (camo) we might aswell just wear orange coveralls!. When we march distance we don't want every commie in the damn eastern bloc to know that we are coming do we!"

Subject: RE: jodies/cadences, especially non-us cadence calls
From: GUEST,Robert
Date: 26 Jul 10 - 08:32 PM

jody cadences stated during ww1 because of a man that joined the service and had a friend that its usaly told when your in that his nick name was jody and his unit was behind enimie lines so the girl after receaving his letter telling her later sent a letter back because she thought he was going to die that she was with jody and after the man got back to the states and his battlebuddys found out stated the jody cadence as a joke and from there on it progessed to the ones i even heared in boot camp and ait and there are more thenyou will ever find on line trust me and the more volger they get the funnier they are. hope this helps been out for 2 years so there could even more then when i was in and they do sing them even after training because other then making you worry of haveing a cheating whore its to give you some kinda humor so you won't go crazy.

Subject: RE: jodies/cadences, especially non-us cadence calls
From: GUEST
Date: 30 Jun 11 - 02:36 PM

If I die on the old drop zone (alt. in a combat zone),
Box me up and send me home.
Fold my arms across my chest,
Tell my wife/gal I done my best.
Send my boots and rifle too,
Tell my gal I loved her true.
Send my jump pay to my wife,
She'll be happy for the rest of her life!

One! (little louder)
Two! (can't hear ya)
Three! (gettin' better)
Four!
One! Two! Three! Four!
One! Two! Three! Four!

Gotta go, all the way!
Gotta go, all the way!
Up the hill!
Down the hill!
THROUGH the hill!
Kill! Kill!