Folklore: Where's your money? In my pocket

Subject: RE: Folklore: Where's your money? In my pocket
From: GUEST
Date: 20 May 11 - 03:29 PM

knock knock
who's there
grandpop
what do you want
a glass of beer
where's your money
in my pocket
where's your pocket
in my pants
where's your pants
i left them home
get out of here you dirty bum

Subject: RE: Folklore: Where's your money? In my pocket
From: GUEST,pat
Date: 21 Jan 11 - 12:16 AM

My grandmother taught me this song:   It goes:

Knock Knock
Who's there?
What do you want?
A glass of beer.
Where's your money?
In my pants.
Where's your pants?
At Home.
Get out of here, you dirty bum....

Subject: RE: Folklore: Where's your money? In my pocket
From: GUEST,Donna F
Date: 20 Aug 10 - 08:31 AM

My mom taught us this, and we taught our kids, and now we're teaching our grandkids. Yesterday, (I'm getting older), I couldn't think of the start. So glad I found this page. The way we do it is

Knock Knock
Who's there?
Grandpa
What do you want?
A glass of beer
Where's your money?
In my pocket.
Where's your pocket?
In my pants
Where are your pants?
I left them home
Where do you live?
across the street
What's your number?
Cucumber
GET OUT OF HERE, YA DRUNKEN BUM

Then we all laugh hysterically, thinking how inappropriate this is to teach kids. But we love it.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Where's your money? In my pocket
From: Joe_F
Date: 19 Aug 10 - 05:27 PM

What's you name?
Puddin' Tane. Ask me again, and I'll tell you the same.

*

Spring is coming.
He is?
Not "He is", "It is".
It is what?
It is coming.
What is coming?
Spring is coming.
He is?

*

You dencink?
You eskink?
I'm eskink if you're dencink.
I'm dencink, if your eskink.
So I'm eskink!
So I'm dencink!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Where's your money? In my pocket
From: GUEST,ca
Date: 19 Aug 10 - 11:45 AM

Knock Knock Who's there Grandpa What do you want a glass of beer ...(glass of milk) Where's your money... in my pocket Where's your pocket... in my pants Where are your pants .... I left them home Where do you live.... across the street What's your number?... Cucumber

Subject: RE: Folklore: Where's your money? In my pocket
From: BuckMulligan
Date: 23 Dec 05 - 09:23 AM

Snuffy, "the man with the power" occurs (don't know about "originates") in "The Bachelor and the Bobbysoxer" with Cary Grant, Myrna Loy and Shirley Temple, 1947. Lightweight flick but amusing.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Where's your money? In my pocket
From: Snuffy
Date: 23 Dec 05 - 08:26 AM

You remind me of the man
What man?
The man with the power
What power
The power of hoodoo
Who do?
You do
Do what?
Remind me of the man

(remembered from some old B&W film - Marx brothers?)

Subject: RE: Folklore: Where's your money? In my pocket
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 22 Dec 05 - 09:28 PM

Here's a bit of dialogue I recall. It could start whenever anyone had just complained about some misfortune, to which someone else would reply, "That's tough."
Then a third person would reply:
--What's tough?
And the dialogue between the latter two would continue:
--Life.
--What's Life?
--A magazine.
--How much does it cost?
--Ten cents.
--I've only got a nickel.
--That's tough.
--What's tough?

Da capo ad infinitum, or ad nauseam, as the case may be.

This dialogue was spoken, not sung. It had no punch line. The dialogue itself was the only joke. I suppose it was done to annoy or embarrass the person who had originally complained—a way of making fun of his complaint. Now that I reflect on it, it seems to be making the point that complaints are endless, if you indulge them. But I don't think I reflected that much when I was a kid.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Where's your money? In my pocket
From: Cool Beans
Date: 22 Dec 05 - 07:46 PM

This is why I love folklore, and Mudcat.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Where's your money? In my pocket
From: Raggytash
Date: 22 Dec 05 - 07:14 AM

Actually its Raggytash's Mrs - Wombat -
Raggytash taught me that version about the silly pussycat years ago and this is the first reference I have ever seen of it. I think he learned it from his grandmother, also North of England.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Where's your money? In my pocket
From: Wyrd Sister
Date: 22 Dec 05 - 05:42 AM

Thanks gnomad - I remembered 'Oh you silly pussycat' but was struggling to remember the opening.
(Northern UK, taught by grandmother born 1911)

Subject: RE: Folklore: Where's your money? In my pocket
From: Mo the caller
Date: 21 Dec 05 - 08:56 AM

Gnomad's verse "grandma's pussy cat" was around in London too in the late 40s

Subject: RE: Folklore: Where's your money? In my pocket
From: GUEST
Date: 20 Dec 05 - 05:59 PM

Neenana, knock at the door
Whose there?
Granpa.
Whaddya want?
A glass of beer.
Where's your money?
In my pocket.
Where's pocket?
In my pants.
Where's your pants?
I left them home.
Get outta here ya bad boy!

That's how my granpa would sing it to my sister and me. :)

Subject: RE: Folklore: Where's your money? In my pocket
From: GUEST,Murray on Saltspring
Date: 17 Jun 05 - 02:48 AM

This is the entry in my collection of "bairnsangs". I thought I sent this in to the Digitrad DB, but perhaps not.


        Far are ye gaein'? Across the gutter.

        Fat for? A pund o' butter.

        Far's yer money? In my pocket.

        Far's yer pocket? Clean forgot it!


- That "Fa" by the way = General Scots "Wha". [Aberdonian dialect]
        
Source of quote is:
        Jean C. Rodger, Lang Strang (1948), 13, from Forfar, c. 1910. Cf. Ritchie Golden City (1965), 48, counting-out from Edinburgh, "Who's there?/ Tiny Tiny Bear", etc. [See Opies Lore and Language of Schoolchildren (1959), 10, a fascinating (and all too rare) series of comparisons covering two and a quarter centuries, the earliest specimen being lines from Henry Carey's satire Namby Pamby, 1726: "Now he acts the Grenadier,/ Calling for a Pot of Beer:/ Where's his Money? He's forgot:/ Get him gone, a Drunken Sot."]

Subject: RE: Folklore: Where's your money? In my pocket
From: gnomad
Date: 16 Jun 05 - 02:06 PM

Rat-a-tat-tat (door knocking gesture)
Who is that?
On-ly Grandma's pu-ssy-cat.
What d'you want?
A pint of milk.
Where's your money?
In my pocket.
Where's your pocket?
I for-got it.
Oh you si-lly pu-ssy-cat!

Kids set of call and answer "game" from my childhood (UK, northern). Hard to reproduce the rhythm on the page, quite stacatto (sp?) though.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Where's your money? In my pocket
From: Highlandman
Date: 16 Jun 05 - 12:28 PM

Thanks, Mr. R - what you have there is different enough to suggest that the underlying shtick predates both versions. I still can't quite remember the start of the one I learned.
-HM

Subject: RE: Folklore: Where's your money? In my pocket
From: Mr Red
Date: 16 Jun 05 - 09:15 AM

This sounds remarkably like the part of a Pace Egging song wot I collected from an old Folkie who used to live in Acrrington (Church and Oswoldtwistle to be precise)

The words can be found on the songs pages of cresby.com look for collected songs "I'm a Paper Lad".

A couple who come from there but are maybe in their 50's told me I had not got the words right but take that as the folk process. I have tried to get their version - I am hopeful.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Where's your money? In my pocket
From: Highlandman
Date: 16 Jun 05 - 01:22 AM

No, no, that wasn't quite it...
I've mixed it with another nonsense chant.
The beginning is something like


Knock at the door.
Who's there?
Grandpa.
Whaddya want?
A glass o' beer
    etc.

Are we getting closer?
-HM

Subject: RE: Folklore: Where's your money? In my pocket
From: Cool Beans
Date: 15 Jun 05 - 04:41 PM

Thank you, Highlandman! I do remember "Whaddya want? A glass of beer." And I think you're pretty close on "Knock knock. Who's there."

Subject: RE: Folklore: Where's your money? In my pocket
From: Highlandman
Date: 15 Jun 05 - 01:33 PM

As taught me by a bachelor uncle:
I'm not too sure about the first four lines, but the rest was seared into my impressionable little mind.

Knock, knock-
Who's there?
Open the door,
Walk in.
Whaddya want?
A glass o' beer.
Where's your money?
In my pocket.
Where's your pocket?
In my pants.
Where's your pants?
At home.
Get outta here, ya dirty bum!

Chanted in a repetitive minor-third pattern (like nya-nya-nya-nya-nya)
-HM

Subject: RE: Folklore: Where's your money? In my pocket
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 15 Jun 05 - 12:19 PM

When I was child (some 70 years ago), we chanted the same thing, with the added ending for the last line,
"... you dirty bum."

Subject: Folklore: Where's your money? In my pocket
From: Cool Beans
Date: 15 Jun 05 - 12:09 PM

Where's your money?
In my pocket.
Where's your pocket?
In my pants.
Where's your pants?
I left them home.
Get out of here!

Anyone know how this bit of comedy begins? When my cousin and I were about 5 we marched up and down the boardwalk at Coney Island chanting this until a man threw a glass of water at us (well, not the whole glass, just the water). That was about 50 years ago and I'm still traumatized. I think my cousin's all right, though.