dreamshark | What would you call this genre of music?

Other than the "Sweet Violets" genre, that is:

"There once was a farmer who took a young miss
In back of the barn where he gave her a...
Lecture on horses and chickens and eggs
And told her that she had such beautiful...
Manners that suited a girl of her charms
A girl that he wanted to take in his...
Washing and ironing and then if she did
They would get married and raise lots of...
Sweet violets, sweeter than all the roses
Covered all over from head to toe
Covered all over with sweet violets."

Does anybody but me remember the kids' songs in this genre? "Suzy Had a Steamboat" is the one that other people seem to know. But my favorite is this one, which I actually learned in junior high from another kid. What I love about it is that it sounds like it's from the 1890's (birch beer? Anti-Irish prejudice?) but was still being passed from kid to kid in the early 60's. The tune is reminiscent of "Suzy had a Steamboat" but definitely not the same.

"Two Irishmen, two Irishmen were digging in a ditch.
One called the other a dirty son of a ...
Birch beer, birch beer, ten cents a glass,
If you do not like it, shove it up your...
Ask me no questions and you will get no answers,
If you do not like it, you can go to...
Hello, operator, give me number nine.
If you cannot reach it, please return my dime."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

These are a special case of "stream of consciousness" lyrics; the special case being that the word connecting two bits is a "bad" word, the joke being that it's implied but not stated. I haven't heard a specific name for the form, though.

Aha! I found it on Wikipedia by looking up "Sweet Violets." It's called the "censored rhyme lyric."

That's a sensible name for it! I might even be able to remember it.

"This article does not cite any references or sources."

Rather, some guy who edited Wikipedia calls it that.

There is another song to the same tune called "The Clean Song," in which all the words hinted at (but never actually sung) are what most of us would call either "dirty" or "obscene." I am not familiar with "Suzy Had a Steamboat." I think the person who sang "Sweet Violets" at a 1974 (I think) ChambanaCon was Gay Haldeman. None of this helps any part of your search, but this is the stuff I thought about when I read your post.

Nate

I found a great set of forum postings from 1999 that had a number of variations on this song. Several of the posters also mentioned the "Irishmen" song which is clearly related. It's funny to see the subtle changes as the song was updated by generations of kids. Here's what sounds like one of the older versions:

Suzy had a steamboat,
The steamboat had a bell,
When Suzy went to heaven,
The steamboat went to -
Hello operator,
Please give me number 9,
And if you disconnect me,
I'll kick your big -
Behind the yellow curtain
There was a piece of glass,
Miss Suzy sat upon it,
And hurt her little -
Ask me no more questions,
I'll tell you no more lies,
The boys are in the bathroom
Doing up their -
Flies are in the city,
The bees are in the park,
The boys and girls are having fun
And necking in the dark-dark-dark!

In what I take to be newer versions "the yellow curtain" turns into other things (refrigerator being most common, Iron Curtain being most topical). "Doing up their flies" turns into "zipping up". And weirdly enough, "bees are in the park," turns into "bees are in their hive," losing the rhyme!

I just realized that the tune I know to this song is exactly the same as another kids' song: "Father's Whiskers" (also of unknown origin).

Now that you print these lyrics, I remember that I had heard it, either as "Mary had a steamboat" or "Mary had a tugboat." Some of the lyrics, though, were not in the version I heard when I was eight or nine.

Nate

A lot of these fall into the "action songs" in that they are usually done with clapping or skipping and a lot of them can be found in "bawdy" versions. (Try clapping games, skipping games, elastic games combined with bawdy.)

Sure enough, I googled that phrase and look what I found. Judging from the last line I think this is a jump rope rhyme rather than a clapping rhyme.

Mary had a little lamb
She also had a duck
she took him round the corner
and taught him how to
fry an eggs for breakfast
fry your eggs for tea
the more you eat
the more drink
the more you want to
Peter had a boat
the boat began to rock
out jumped jaws
and bit him on the cock
tail, ginger ale, forty cents a glass
if you don't drink then
shove it up your
ask no questions
tell no lies
I saw two policemen
doing up their flies
are bad, mosquitoes are worse
I saw the doctor
lying on the nurse
nurse him well
if you don't you will go to hell
If you crash you'll fall
to the ground

There's a nonsense song we used to sing on the way to YMCA day camp that's clearly related to this one, and also clearly went through the folk process. Let's see if I can still remember the words.

There's a place on Mars
Where the women smoke cigars
And the men they take
Are enough to build a cake
If the cake won't die
They will punch it in the eye
If the eye turns blue
They will put it in a shoe
If the shoe won't cook
They will put it in a book
If the book won't close
They will punch it in the nose
If the nose won't blow
They will --
*Hello operator,
Give me number nine
Johnny's on the toilet, wiping his --
Behind the iron curtain
Was a piece of glass
Johnny fell right on it
And broke his little --
Ask me no more questions
Tell me no more lies
This is the story
Of how Johnny died

The tune changes at the asterisk -- until then, it's the snake-charming tune -- which makes me suspect that the folk process combined two different songs.

I find it funny there's more than the one of these. My father used to sing Two Irishman when I was little. Our words were slightly different but it's the same song.

Several songs use a similar rhyme scheme. "Shaving Cream", "Yas Yas Yas" (Steve B. used to do that song). Even Nate's "Chart Song" uses it: "and now the verse you've been waiting for... aside from deep breathing the only obscene thing I've done since last April is *bleep*. ...and we go separate places to sleep."

As to the genre: I generally just place these under the generic description of "wordplay". If there's an actual marketing category, where we could go to the section in a CD store/iTunes store, I'd be interested in knowing what it might be.

Edited 2009-09-22 18:57 (UTC)

Some girls work in a factory,
Some girls work in a store.
My girl works in a millinery shop
With forty other working ladies.

From a novel by Nevil Shute.

What would you call this genre of music?

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Sweet violets

Suzy Had a Steamboat

Re: Suzy Had a Steamboat

Re: Suzy Had a Steamboat

Bawdy clapping rhymes - what a concept!

Re: Suzy Had a Steamboat

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