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Cucumber Boat / Paper Dollies Song

17 Nov 01 - 03:44 PM (#594766)
Subject: Cucumber Boat / Paper Dollies Song
From: GUEST,Melissa

Hi- am looking for help finding info on a song my mother sang to be as a child. I know the tune and the lyrics I know are:

"Oh what fun it is to float
On a green cucumber boat
Paper dollies, ladies, men
Sitting straight as paper dolls can.

When alas, the boast upset
The paper dolls got wet
Quickly homeward they did run
To dry themselves out in the sun."

What I am trying to find out is where this song came from...who wrote it...is this all of it...

any info anyone can give would be greatly appreciated.


17 Nov 01 - 09:05 PM (#594891)
Subject: RE: Cucumber Boat / Paper Dollies Song
From: Sorcha

I looked, sort of. Not diligently though. No joy.


17 Nov 01 - 11:30 PM (#594940)
Subject: RE: Cucumber Boat / Paper Dollies Song
From: GUEST,Melissa

thank you for the try!!


06 Sep 10 - 08:06 PM (#2981229)
Subject: RE: Cucumber Boat / Paper Dollies Song
From: GUEST,Janet

I know this thread is 9 years old; but I just found it because I was looking for info about this song too. My dad sang it to me when I was a child. The person who wrote this eamil probably won't even know I answered.


08 Apr 11 - 10:00 AM (#3131286)
Subject: RE: Cucumber Boat / Paper Dollies Song
From: GUEST

omg...and another year later I am finding your post. you are the only other person, other than my family, that I know has even heard of this song. I LOVE it.


08 Oct 11 - 07:40 AM (#3235731)
Subject: RE: Cucumber Boat / Paper Dollies Song
From: GUEST,kristen guest

No one I know of has heard it either.....my grandmother, who was born in 1912 used to sing it to me 25 or so years ago...slight variation on the words though.


02 Jul 12 - 05:49 PM (#3370965)
Subject: RE: Cucumber Boat / Paper Dollies Song
From: GUEST,Simmons

http://books.google.ca/books?id=HrJMAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA62&lpg=PA62&dq=%22cucumber+boat%22+song&source=bl&ots=knSCFjcRBh&sig=-lpImZ2eKvgxi2dmct3gji14giY&hl=en&sa=X&ei=MxXyT63aNuq36wHIpuyCBg&ved=0CFcQ6AEwBg#v=onepage&q=%22cucumber%20boat%22%20song&f=false

found this, but that's all I got for ya. Grandmother used to sing it sometimes as well, which is how I found this thread :P


20 Sep 13 - 01:06 AM (#3559953)
Subject: RE: Cucumber Boat / Paper Dollies Song
From: GUEST

My grandfather used to sing it to my Mom and her siblings when they were children. It used to freak her out because he sang it with a different ending where the dolls were destroyed. Sorry, I don't have the lines to that one. Her father always recited kind of morbid poems and songs to them. In his version it was a "cucumbie boat" rather than cucumber.

I found one other person on the internet who had referenced this song but the link is now gone.

My grandfather was born in 1899.

He also used to recite Little Orphant Annie and "Down Went McGinty to the Bottom of the Sea, dressed in his best suit of clothes, clothes, clothes."

My email is: kwalstedt@gmail.com if anyone wants to chat.


22 Dec 15 - 09:48 AM (#3760246)
Subject: RE: Cucumber Boat / Paper Dollies Song
From: GUEST,Susan


22 Dec 15 - 12:47 PM (#3760313)
Subject: RE: Cucumber Boat / Paper Dollies Song
From: GUEST,Susan

https://books.google.com/books?id=HrJMAQAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=inauthor:%22Alice+Cushing+Donaldson+Riley%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiN2eG57O_JAhUH8z4KHThwCZUQ6AEILjAC#v=twopage&q&f=false

Link to the cucumber boat song, the original


03 Jun 17 - 01:41 PM (#3858670)
Subject: RE: Cucumber Boat / Paper Dollies Song
From: GUEST,Guest

How fun to find this thread! And to know others share this special song and memory I have of my dearly departed Grandmother. I hollowed out cucumbers for a salad today and it rekindle the long dormant lyrics. To all of you who can sing it, cheers!