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'My hand on my head' (children's song)

19 Mar 10 - 07:21 PM (#2867882)
Subject: 'My hand on my head' (children's song)
From: Haruo

I can't seem to find a discussion of this song, not even a mention actually. I tried searching both DT and Forum for "My hand on my", "Mine hand on", and "Mein hand on" without success.

As a kid I always heard it and sang it (mostly at Boy Scout camp, I think) in faux-deutsch accent. I'm having a really hard time remembering the specifics. The question arises because I was singing

Mein hand on mein head, voss is doss here?
Doss is mein pea-pecker, my mama dear.


and my wife overheard me, and had never heard the song (despite having done time in both Girl Scouts and Campfire). We were mutually amazed, but I couldn't think of how the whole thing went, and now I'm stumped by my failure to find it on the 'Cat...

Google gives a number of versions, but none shows any vestige of dialectal teutonicism. I can no more imagine singing this in normative English than I could "John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt" or "There was a little Dutchman" or "Lutefisk, O Lutefisk"...

Haruo


19 Mar 10 - 07:22 PM (#2867883)
Subject: RE: 'My hand on my head' (children's song)
From: GUEST,mg

das ist mein eyeblinker my mamma dear


19 Mar 10 - 07:24 PM (#2867886)
Subject: RE: 'My hand on my head' (children's song)
From: GUEST,mg

here you go


19 Mar 10 - 07:28 PM (#2867890)
Subject: RE: 'My hand on my head' (children's song)
From: Emma B

With my hands on my head and what have we here..

This is my nutcracker, nothing to fear

These are my eye peepers

down to knee knockers etc.....

Nostalgia eh? :)


19 Mar 10 - 07:32 PM (#2867892)
Subject: RE: 'My hand on my head' (children's song)
From: Haruo

Thanks, both. Mary, were you intending a link or something when you said "here you go"?

Haruo


19 Mar 10 - 07:39 PM (#2867895)
Subject: RE: 'My hand on my head' (children's song)
From: Melissa

nicky nicky nacky nu..that's what I learned in der school


19 Mar 10 - 07:50 PM (#2867896)
Subject: RE: 'My hand on my head' (children's song)
From: GUEST,mg

I was but now I lost it..just google eye blinker mein mama dear


19 Mar 10 - 08:06 PM (#2867904)
Subject: RE: 'My hand on my head' (children's song)
From: Haruo

And I think it's probably "vot iss doss" rather than "voss is doss".

Thanks, both of you again.

More? Anyone have a complete text to offer?

Haruo


19 Mar 10 - 08:14 PM (#2867909)
Subject: RE: 'My hand on my head' (children's song)
From: Melissa

nose dripper (we might have made that one up)
foot stomper


19 Mar 10 - 08:33 PM (#2867915)
Subject: RE: 'My hand on my head' (children's song)
From: Monique

There are many different versions on this page of Mama Lisa's Blog


19 Mar 10 - 10:07 PM (#2867937)
Subject: RE: 'My hand on my head' (children's song)
From: GUEST,booklynrose

My hand on myself, what is this here
This is my sweatboxer oh mamma dear
(After each verse repeat all the preceding parts then)
Nicky Nicky Nicky Nu.
That's what we learn in the school, ya, ya.

The parts I remember are
Sweatboxer (forehead)
Eyeblinker
Noseblower
Chin chopper
Wind chester
Bread basket
Sit downer
?Knee bender?
What did we sing for feet?

There may have been some kind of fake German accent.
I sang a lot in the Girl Scouts in the 1950's, and probably learned it there.


21 Mar 10 - 12:47 PM (#2868643)
Subject: RE: 'My hand on my head' (children's song)
From: Uncle_DaveO

Here's what my Aunts Lucille and Evelyn taught me in the late 30s, out of their own childhood, as well as I remember it:

Mit a hand on meinself (touching questioned part)
Was ist das hier?       (pronounced "Vahs ist dahs here")
Das ist mein sveatboxer
My mama Dear
Sveatboxer, sveatboxer, ("sveatboxer" repeated in this line for
                         the rhythm of the first verse)
And a dicky, dicky, dicky doo
Dot's vot we learned in d' school!

And of course at each repetition of "Was ist das hier?" one touches the part involved, and in the following backward recital one touches each named part.
So a couple times into it we get the backward recitation:
. . ."Noseblower, eye-blinker, brow-wrinkler, sveatbox" . . . "dropping the 'er' at this point"
And a dicky, dicky, dicky doo (twirling index finger in ascending spiral)
Dot's vot we learned in d' school!

And among the parts identified:
Brow-wrinkler
eye-blinker
nose-blower
Chin-chopper
arm-bender
bread-basket
knee-bender
foot-stomper
toe-tapper

Dave Oesterreich


21 Mar 10 - 01:00 PM (#2868655)
Subject: RE: 'My hand on my head' (children's song)
From: catspaw49

I think you left out "Schwann Stooker"...............

Spaw


04 Jun 10 - 04:33 PM (#2920752)
Subject: RE: 'My hand on my head' (children's song)
From: Uncle_DaveO

Spaw:

I know what a "Schwann" is--it's a swan.

But what is a "stooker", and what does "Schwann stooker" refer to?

Dave Oesterreich