• We have updated the guidelines regarding posting political content: please see the stickied thread on Website Issues.

Secret World Of Children's Chants

As young lads, we didn't have skipping songs but we did have 'Dip' to choose who was 'on' for hide and seek etc by elimination. We all stuck one foot in a circle and the Dipper would put a finger on each shoe to a rhyme. We had a few rhymes for counting. As has already been posted we had...

My mother and your mother
Were hanging out the clothes
My mother gave your mother
A punch on the nose
What colour was the blood?

Blue.

B... L... U... E. spells Blue
And you are not on for this game of....
(Whatever)

We also had...

Engine, engine
On the line,
Wasting petrol
All the time
How
Many
Gallons
Did
It
Waste?
 
As if a bunch of kids feet wasn't enough of a drawn out process of democratically choosing 'it', we also managed to double the length of the process by putting both fists in a ring and the Dipper would hit his fist on top of yours and go round to a rhyme.

Now my memory is hazy on this but the rhyme was something like...

'Olka Bolka
Olka Bolka
Olka Bolka.
Nob.

Olka Bolka
Super Solka
Olka Bolka
Nob.

At which point, the touched fist would be removed from the draw and hid behind the back.
 
Last edited:
jimv1 said:
Now my memory is hazy on this but the rhyme was something like...

'Olka Bolka
Olka Bolka
Olka Bolka.
Nob.

Olka Bolka
Super Solka
Olka Bolka
Nob.
Click to expand...

We did...

Ickle Ockle
Chockle Ockle
Ickle Ockle
Oo,
Ickle Ockle
Chockle Ockle
Out goes
You.

JamesWhitehead said:
The fists thing is a version of One Potato, Two Potato, Three Potato, More!
Click to expand...
"Put yer spuds in."
 
I recall a lad in junior school walking around the playground singing;

"Hey fluffy undies
I only wear them on Sundays"

I have a vague recollection that it may have come from something from TV as I can't imagine that he made it up. Perhaps he did.
 
GNC said:
Black bobble
Click to expand...

"Plastic bobble" was an odd, synthetic variant used in Southport. I have the feeling that it arrived in time for my brother to know it, as I had no memory of it myself. Perhaps, even then, I was thinking the glory days had passed! :omr:
 
I can recall I kid at our school whose name was Adam, and who came from a family who were a bit... yokel. They lived n a farm lot at the edge of town, didn't have much money kept and kept themselves to themselves. To the point that it was inferred that maybe they kept themselves a little too much to themselves, if you follow...

To which the the following tune was often sung, to the theme of The Addams Family.

His sister is his mother,
His father is his brother,
They all just f**k each other,
That's Adam's family.

Followed by clapping and reciting the names of individual members of that family, whose actual names have been lost to me over the passage of time... :)
 
CuriousIdent said:
I can recall I kid at our school whose name was Adam, and who came from a family who were a bit... yokel. They lived n a farm lot at the edge of town, didn't have much money kept and kept themselves to themselves. To the point that it was inferred that maybe they kept themselves a little too much to themselves, if you follow...

To which the the following tune was often sung, to the theme of The Addams Family.

His sister is his mother,
His father is his brother,
They all just f**k each other,
That's Adam's family.

Followed by clapping and reciting the names of individual members of that family, whose actual names have been lost to me over the passage of time... :)
Click to expand...
That brings to mind this playground ditty, sung to the tune of 'The Teddy Bears' Picnic'
If you go down to the woods today,
you'd better not close your eyes
If you go down to the woods today,
You're in for a big surprise
'Cos mum and dad are having a shag
And Uncle Frank is having a wank
And Aunty Floss is having a toss
With Graaaaaandad.
 
gellatly68 said:
That brings to mind this playground ditty, sung to the tune of 'The Teddy Bears' Picnic'
If you go down to the woods today,
you'd better not close your eyes
If you go down to the woods today,
You're in for a big surprise
'Cos mum and dad are having a shag
And Uncle Frank is having a wank
And Aunty Floss is having a toss
With Graaaaaandad.
Click to expand...

It's like poetry! :rollingw:
 
gellatly68 said:
That brings to mind this playground ditty, sung to the tune of 'The Teddy Bears' Picnic'
If you go down to the woods today,
you'd better not close your eyes
If you go down to the woods today,
You're in for a big surprise
'Cos mum and dad are having a shag
And Uncle Frank is having a wank
And Aunty Floss is having a toss
With Graaaaaandad.
Click to expand...
Way to ruin a childhood song!
 
Our 6 year old has not reported any schoolyard chants as yet, but the games he and his friends make up at recess are intriguing.

First there was one they called "the mystery of the apartment", in which spies (all girls) had infiltrated an apartment building and were trying to fill it with "rainbow gas". Last week the boys successfully caught the spies and stole their gas, so all was well.

Now, they are playing one called "the lighthouse war" in which two teams of lighthouse keepers are throwing bombs at each other. Except these aren't ordinary bombs, they are enormous eggs which have cats in them. The cat-bombs hatch into cats that grow to the size of Godzilla. The meows alone are enough to shake down the lighthouse walls.
:rollingw:

I'm sure when they get around to making up chants they will be very creative. :p
 
th
 
gellatly68 said:
That brings to mind this playground ditty, sung to the tune of 'The Teddy Bears' Picnic'
If you go down to the woods today,
you'd better not close your eyes
If you go down to the woods today,
You're in for a big surprise
'Cos mum and dad are having a shag
And Uncle Frank is having a wank
And Aunty Floss is having a toss
With Graaaaaandad.
Click to expand...

I remember hearing that at school ... and this version of a TV butter advert ditty

We are the boys from the Durex mob
and you'll never stick a better bit of rubber on your nob
it sticks to your prick like evostick and you can't get it off in the mornnning ..
 
I can't believe no one has posted this one yet:


Johnny and Mary (or whoever)
Sittin' in a tree
K-I-S-S-I-N-G
First comes love
Then comes marriage
Then comes Johnny in a baby carriage


...or this one:


Here comes the bride
Big fat and wide
Where is the groom?
He's in the bathroom
What's he doing there?
Washing his underwear


We also had minor variants on Jingle Bells Batman Smells and We Three Kings and Popeye. A few other gems from my youth:


Tarzan the monkey man
Swinging on a rubber band
Fell into a frying pan
And ended up the garbage can



It's raining it's pouring
The old man is snoring
He went to bed and bumped his head
And couldn't wake up in the morning



(name of kid) is a friend of mine
He will sell me his behind
For a nickel or a dime
Fifteen cents for overtime


(To the tune of 'Michelle':)
Michelle you smell
Michelle you smell
Oh my god you smell
My Michelle
 
We had our own children chants here in Norway. We sung them, but never understood where they came from. They must have gone orally from generation to generation of children through hundreds of years, some of them.
 
From my primary school days (mid 1980's) this sordid little ode -

Up in the attic where nobody goes,
There stands (insert female name) without any clothes,
Up comes (insert male name) as bold as a prick,
Down with his trousers and up with his dick,
Three months later all goes well,
Three months later her body starts to swell,
three months later wizz bang pop,
Out comes a baby with a disabled cock,
And ladies and gentlemen that is not all,
The poor little bugger had only one ball.

And this skipping chant...

Cinderella dressed in yella,
Went downtown to buy some custard,
On the way her girdle busted,
How many people were disgusted....
 
We had a "Here comes the bride" regional variant:

Here comes the bride
Forty feet wide
Slid down the bannister
And landed in the Clyde.

Also water-based, to the tune of Land of Hope and Glory, was:

Land of soapy glory
(Name) is having a bath
Everybody's looking through the keyhole
Trying not to laugh.
 
Our "Here comes the bride" version went:

Here comes the bride
Big fat and wide
Couldn't get in the front door
So had to go in the side.
 
I've just remembered another song from primary school. I clearly went to somewhere thoroughly depraved....
(to the tune of 'A bicycle seat for two')
Daisy, Daisy
Give me your tit to chew
I'm half crazy
Over my love for you
I can't afford a johnny*
A plastic bag will do
For you look sweet
Under a sheet
With me on top of you

*For younger viewers/non-Brits: a johnny, or rubber johnny, is a condom.
 
Abingdon, Berkshire, mid-1960s:

“Buffalo Billy had a ten-foot willy
Showed it to the girl next door
She thought it was a snake
Hit it with a rake
Now it’s only four foot four.”

maximus otter
 
maximus otter said:
Abingdon, Berkshire, mid-1960s:

“Buffalo Billy had a ten-foot willy
Showed it to the girl next door
She thought it was a snake
Hit it with a rake
Now it’s only four foot four.”

maximus otter
Click to expand...

Oxford, 1990s -- pretty similar but it was 'My friend Billy'

EDIT: more from the same time at school:

Popeye the Sailor Man
Lived in a frying pan
There's a hole in the middle where he goes for a piddle
Popeye the sailor man


Teacher, teacher, I declare
I can see your underwear
Is it black or is it white?
Oh my god, it's dynamite!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top