Looking for great fun/funny rounds

Subject: RE: Looking for great fun/funny rounds
From: GUEST,Joe_F
Date: 13 Dec 05 - 10:08 PM

Eulalee: "Little Jack Horner" (with somewhat different words) is in _Rounds Galore!_, collected & published by Sol Weber (1994). "He That Will an Alehouse Keep" is in _The Penguin Book of Rounds_, collected by Rosemary Cass-Beggs (Penguin Books, 1982). Both books have many other amusing rounds.

--- Joe Fineman    [e-mail]

||: The roots of wit and charm tap Secret springs of sorrow. :||

Subject: RE: Looking for great fun/funny rounds
From: GUEST,Eulalee
Date: 13 Dec 05 - 09:01 PM

Thanks!
Some of these sound like what I'm looking for - any way to get the melodies to them?
Some of them I've been able to figure out or vaguely remember and can make sense of but of the one's I can't . . .

I'm particularly interested in the
Artful Codger's "What a queer bird...",
and the two from Joe f. I like those catches - they can be really fun.
Also Willa's "Beware the Law of Gravity"

but I have no idea of the tunes for them. I'm new to this whole forum thing - how do people get melodies?

Subject: RE: Looking for great fun/funny rounds
From: Artful Codger
Date: 13 Dec 05 - 12:24 PM

There's P.D.Q. Bach's "Art of the Ground Round". I'm thinking particularly of "Loving Is As Easy".

Also a round I learned at a folk-dance party:

What a queer bird the frog are
When he sit he stand almost
When he walk he fly almost
When he sing he cry almost
And he ain't got no sense hardly
He ain't got no tail hardly
EITHER! He sit on what he ain't got hardly...

Cheers!

Subject: RE: Looking for great fun/funny rounds
From: Willa
Date: 13 Dec 05 - 12:06 PM

Beware the law of gravity
That makes the bread you have for tea
Fall to the ground
Butter side down

Sounds very impressive!

Can do you an abc version if you want it.

Subject: RE: Looking for great fun/funny rounds
From: GUEST,Joe_F
Date: 12 Dec 05 - 09:30 PM

Little Jack Horner was an informer

For the FBI. He

Busted his friends again and again and

Said, "Oh, oh, oh,

What a good boy, what a good boy,

What a good boy am I!"

Then of course there are those old catches in which, when all the parts are going, new meanings emerge; e.g.,

He who would an alehouse keep

Must have three things in store:

A chamber with a featherbed,

A chimney, and a hey-nonny-nonny, etc.

--- Joe Fineman    [e-mail]

||: Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do. :||

Subject: RE: Looking for great fun/funny rounds
From: Tootler
Date: 12 Dec 05 - 06:40 AM

One we used to sing in the Scouts.

Ging Gang Gooly Gooly Gooly Gooly Watcha
Ging Gang Goo, Ging Gang Goo.
Repeat
Hayla, Hayla Shayla, Hayla Shayla Hayla Ho
Repeat
Shalli Walli, Shalli Walli, Shalli Walli
Oompah, Oompah, Oompah, Oompah.

Total nonsense words as far as I am concerned, but I suspect derived from something in an African Language as Baden Powell spent time in Africa.

Subject: RE: Looking for great fun/funny rounds
From: GUEST, Topsie
Date: 12 Dec 05 - 06:15 AM

Whose pigs are these?
Whose pigs are these?
They are Tom Pott's
I know them by their spots
And I found them in the vicarage garden.

Subject: RE: Looking for great fun/funny rounds
From: AllisonA(Animaterra)
Date: 12 Dec 05 - 05:59 AM

"life is but a melancholy flower" needs to be sung to Frere Jacques in a MINOR mode- it's wonderful!

Also~
I sat next to the Dutchess at Tea
It was just as I feared it would be
Her rumblings abdominal were simply phenomenal
And everyone thought it was me, oh~

and~
Benjy met the bear
The bear met Benjy
The bear was bulgy
The bulge was Benjy


and a classic by Moondog~
Nero's expedition up the Nile failed
Because the water hyacinths
Had clogged the river,
Denying Nero's vessels passage
Through the Sud of Nubia

Subject: RE: Looking for great fun/funny rounds
From: Splott Man
Date: 12 Dec 05 - 03:45 AM

Again to Frere Jacques

Llanfairpwllgwyn, Llanfairpwllgwyn,
Gyllgogerychwyrn, Gyllgogerychwyrn,
Drobwllllantysilio, Drobwllllantysilio,
Gogogoch, Gogogoch,

Subject: RE: Looking for great fun/funny rounds
From: Little Robyn
Date: 12 Dec 05 - 01:47 AM

C-O-F-F-E-E
Don't drink too much coffee,
Not for children is this Turkish drink,
Shakes your nerves and makes your heart go on the blink,
Don't be a Turk my dear,
It's not the custom here!

Subject: RE: Looking for great fun/funny rounds
From: Joybell
Date: 12 Dec 05 - 01:43 AM

My dame hath a lame, tame crane
My dame hath a crane that is lame
Oh say, Gentle Jane does your dame's lame tame crane,
Drink and come home again.


Fun and easier than it seems. Cheers, Joy

Subject: RE: Looking for great fun/funny rounds
From: GUEST,Eulalee
Date: 11 Dec 05 - 08:50 PM

Got it! Thanks!

Subject: RE: Looking for great fun/funny rounds
From: SINSULL
Date: 11 Dec 05 - 08:49 PM

Does Michael Finnegan get to tear off his shirt and sweat all over his partner?

Subject: RE: Looking for great fun/funny rounds
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 11 Dec 05 - 08:42 PM

or, to be clearer still, the line "Melancholy flower" is


(Melan)-(choly) (flower) = (Dorm)-(ez ) (- vous)

DC

Subject: RE: Looking for great fun/funny rounds
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 11 Dec 05 - 08:38 PM

It fits this way:

Life is butter                  =    Frère Jacques
Life is but a                   =    Frère Jacques
Melancholy flower         =    Dormez-vous
Melancholy flower         =    Dormez-vous
Life is but a melon         =    Sonnez les matines
Life is but a melon         =    Sonnez les matines
Cauliflower                   =    Din dan don
Cauliflower                   =    Din dan don


DC

Subject: RE: Looking for great fun/funny rounds
From: GUEST,Eulalee
Date: 11 Dec 05 - 08:20 PM

Thanks Everybody, this is great! Mo, I can't figure out how to get the Meloncholy flower into the Frere Jacques tune.

Subject: RE: Looking for great fun/funny rounds
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 11 Dec 05 - 07:44 PM

Just to make the atrocious puns obvious, read Mo The Caller's rhyme with this:

To Frere Jacques again
"Life is but a meloncholy flower"

Life is butter
Life is but a
Meloncholy flower
Meloncholy flower
Life is but a melon-
Life is but a melon-
Cauliflower
Cauliflower


Cheers

Nigel

Subject: RE: Looking for great fun/funny rounds
From: Mo the caller
Date: 11 Dec 05 - 04:24 PM

To Frere Jacques again
"Life is but a meloncholy flower"
(each line repeated)
Life is but a
Meloncholy flower
Life is but a melon-
Choly flower.

Have fun

Subject: RE: Looking for great fun/funny rounds
From: NH Dave
Date: 11 Dec 05 - 12:09 PM

There's one we learned at camp that goes like this:

Sarasponda, sarasponda, sarasponda ret set set.
Sarasponda, sarasponda sarasponda ret set set.
A doray-oh, A doray boomday-oh.
A doray boomday ret set set, ah say pa say oh.
Boom-be-da, boom-be-da, boom-be-da, boomÉ

Comments:
Split group into 2 parts. Sing through together, then one group continues singing the boom-be-da part, while the other sings through the verse. Then switch.

The tune for this round can be found here, and if you open this URL twice and time it right, you can even hear the two copies of the URL "sing" the round as a round.

There's even some sheet music here if you like to save the song in this fashion.

I believe this Dutch round is supposed to mimic the sounds of a flying shuttle loom - one where the shuttle is shot from the shuttle box at one side of the loom to the other, by jerking on a control or drive rope - as it weaves cloth. The booming imitates the sound of the beater reed being pulled back against the newly woven clith, to pack the threads in tightly without any gaps.

Dave

Subject: RE: Looking for great fun/funny rounds
From: curmudgeon
Date: 11 Dec 05 - 11:47 AM

A standard annual round at our sessions, to the tune of "Frere Jacques,"

This Thanksging, this Thanksgiving,
Don't eat bread, don't eat bread,
Shove it up the turkey, shove it up the turkey,
Eat the bird, eat the bird.

Subject: RE: Looking for great fun/funny rounds
From: the lemonade lady
Date: 11 Dec 05 - 11:37 AM

Hey Sinsull, did you know you can sing

I know a man named Michael Finnegan
He grows whiskers on his chinnegan
Cuts them off but they grow in again
Poor old Michael Finnegan
Begin again

and Lord of the Dance together. It's good fun and sounds wonderful!

Sal

Subject: ADD: To Stop the Train (round)
From: iancarterb
Date: 11 Dec 05 - 11:18 AM

There's a nice two liner from the Washington Department of Ag sign
"Apple maggot quarantine area"
I believe Tom Hunter set the tune I've heard.
He also was the first person I heard sing

"To stop the train
In cases of emergency
Pull on the cord
Pull on the cord
Penalty for improper use
Five pounds"

from a London subway sign, I believe.

Subject: RE: Looking for great fun/funny rounds
From: lady penelope
Date: 11 Dec 05 - 11:05 AM

Dunno the name of the tune but at school we learnt

Mr Rabbit Mr Rabbit
Your ears are mighty long
Yes my Lord, they're put on wrong
Every little soul must shine, shine, shine
Every little soul must shine (clap) shine, shine.

On the bawdy side there's always (to the tune of Frere Jacque)

I like spanking, I like spanking
Spanking nuns, spanking nuns
I like spanking dead nuns, I like spanking dead nuns
Dead nuns' bums, dead nuns' bums.

Traditional

Hey ho nobody at home
Meat nor ale nor money have I none
Yet will I be merry

Subject: RE: Looking for great fun/funny rounds
From: GUEST,Pete Peterson
Date: 11 Dec 05 - 11:04 AM

try www.roundz.tripod.com   for a link to Sol Weber's collection of rounds, some serious, some humorous, all wonderful. Best source I know!

Subject: RE: Looking for great fun/funny rounds
From: SINSULL
Date: 11 Dec 05 - 10:50 AM

I know a man named Michael Finnegan
He grows whiskers on his chinnegan
Cuts them off but they grow in again
Poor old Michael Finnegan
Begin again

Subject: Looking for great fun/funny rounds
From: GUEST,Eulalee
Date: 11 Dec 05 - 10:46 AM

I'm looking for suggestions for great rounds or short songs to teach at group sings. Particularly interested in the quirky and funny. Any suggestions?