Examples Of The Children's Foot Stomping Cheer "Rock The Boat"

Edited by Azizi Powell

Latest update: January 17, 2024

This is Part II of a two part pancocojams series on the 1974 Disco song "Rock The Boat" and children's "Rock The Boat" cheers.

This post features video & text examples of "Rock The Boat" cheers and also provides some comments about the structure of those cheers.

Part I showcases the song "Rock The Boat" as recorded by The Hues Corporation (1973).

Click http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2013/05/the-hues-corporation-rock-boat-video.html for Part I.

The content of this post is presented for cultural, entertainment, and aesthetic purposes.

All copyrights remain with their owners.

Thanks to all those who are featured in these videos and all those whose cheer examples are presented in this post.

****
THE TEXTUAL PATTERN THAT IS USED FOR  "ROCK THE BOAT" CHILDREN'S CHEERS
"Rock The Boat" children's cheers demonstrate the influence that foot stomping cheers have had and continue to have on the cheers that are performed by children's cheerleading squads. I'm referring to cheers that are composed using a particular type of call & response structure that is quite different from the older "mainstream" "Go Team Go" type of cheerleader cheers.

There are "traditional" foot stomping cheer versions of "Rock The Boat" and there are adapted mainstream versions of that cheer. A significant difference between traditional & mainstream cheerleader versions of "Rock The Boat" cheers is the "command, refusal, compliance" wording of examples that are adapted forms of foot stomping cheers.

"Command, refusal, compliance" is my term for foot stomping cheers in which the group commands (or demands) that the soloist do something and the soloist initially refuses to do that thing. Mainstream examples of these types of cheers usually are adapted forms of this pattern. In those adapted forms the group asks the soloist to do something and the soloist immediately complies (agrees to do what is asked of her.)

A person who immediately complies with a demand or a request conveys a different tone for those cheers and an entirely different cultural message than a person who initially refuses to do what is demanded or requested. I believe that these are crucial differences.

In "traditional" foot stomping cheer examples of these cheers,  the soloist's initial refusal to comply with the group's command is part of the "tough" street girl persona.  A "tough girl" does what she wants to do when she wants to do it. Nobody can tell her what to do and when to do it.  The fact that the girl initially refuses to do what is demanded of her demonstrates or suggests that the girls (and their community) place a high value on being independent and not (immediately) acceding to orders (or expectations) that others have for them. 

I believe that the question "Can you rock the boat" actually means "Will you show us how you do the "Rock the boat" dance?". An incorrect interpretation for that question is "Are you able to do that dance?" However, in the context of those cheers,  the soloist's surly answer of "No way" means that "I'm not going to show you how to do that dance right now just because you ask me to."

That said, I don't believe that the girls who chanted/chant the traditional "command ("demand") form or the adapted "immediately compliant" form of these cheers consciously recognize the messages that these types of  cheers convey.

****
EARLIEST EXAMPLES OF "ROCK THE BOAT" CHEERS
The earliest dated examples that I've collected for "Rock The Boat" cheers are from the 1980s. The source for the "Rock The Boat" portion of these cheers is the Hues Corporations' 1973 R&B song with that title. The "Rock The Boat" dance movements could have been based on the movements that that music group performed while singing that song. 

****
SHOWCASE VIDEOS

(These videos are posted in chronological order with the oldest video posted first.)

Video #1: Aniya Rocks The Boat :-)



 ti55, Uploaded on Mar 16, 2008
-snip-
This is an example of the "She Slides" sub-category of "Rock The Boat" cheers.

A transcription of this video is given as Example #1 below.

****
Video #2: ROCK THE BOAT



RainbowBrite895, Uploaded on Jul 3, 2008

haha this is my softball team doing one of our cheers
-snip-
Examples of cheers from this video's viewer comment thread are found below. Because those examples are very similar to the cheer that is chanted in that video, I didn't transcribe that video. This "Rock The Boat" cheer is from that cheer's "Bang Bang Choo Choo Train" sub-category. It appears from my review of these cheers that examples include either the "She slides" or "the Bang Bang" verses, However, there may be examples of this cheer that include both of these verses.

 ****
Video #3: Bulldogs Rock the Boat (cheer)



mlisa73, Uploaded on Dec 23, 2011

The girls cheering.
-snip-
This cheer is from the "bang bang choo choo train" category of the "Rock The Boat" cheers.
A sub-category of that cheer which includes the line "bang bang and pull that spirt". Examples of these cheers are found below.

****
Keira & aliyah rock the boat cheer



shawn cavanagh, Published Sep 27, 2012
-snip-
This is an example of the "She Slides" sub-category of "Rock The Boat" cheers.

****
EXAMPLES OF "ROCK THE BOAT" CHEERS
(These examples are from the featured videos presented above or their viewer comment threads. They aren't presented in any particular order.)

Example #1: ROCK THE BOAT
Rock the boat. Don't tip it over.
Rock the boat. Don't tip it over.
Hey, Aniya. "Hey what?"
Hey, Aniya. "Hey what?"
Can you rock the boat? "No way."
Can you rock the boat?! "Ok."
She slides. She slides. She do The Butterfly.
She dips. She dips. She shakes her little hips!
-ti55, Mar 16, 2008, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9QuTsAtQPY

****
Example #2: ROCK THE BOAT
I learned

"Hey ____!"
"Hey what?"
"Hey ____!"
"Hey what?"
"Can you rock the boat?"
"I might"
"Can you rock the boat?"
"Alright!"
"Rock the boat, Don't tip it over,
Rock the boat, Don't tip it over"
-TheKaitybugs, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9QuTsAtQPY, 2012

****
Example #3: ROCK THE BOAT
Rock the boat and don’t tip it over
Rock the boat and don’t tip it over
My name is ___
(rock the boat)
I cheer for bulldogs
(rock the boat)
And if I didn’t*
(rock the boat)
it goes a little something like this
bang bang get it get it
Ah!
And pull that spirit.

[continue with the next girl who says the same words except her name]
-mlisa73, Uploaded on Dec 23, 2011, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKGOoqGcWvw
-snip-
This is my transcription of the cheer given in Video #3.
* "And if I didn't" is usually given as “and when I do). Those words make more sense in the context of this cheer.

****
Example #4: ROCK THE BOAT
this is how we do it at my school:

rock the boat dont tip it over
rock the boat dont tip it over
my name is __
yeah!
im feelin fine!
yeah!
u mess with me
yeah!
ill blow ur mind
so bang bang choo choo train
u look at me and i do my thang
no recces pieces no butter cup
i kno karate i kno kung fu
u mess with ill mes with u!

i kno its tottaly off to wat everyone else is sayin but thats wat we sing on the bus all the time.
-slimeshady100, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9QuTsAtQPY, 2010

****
Example #5: ROCK THE BOAT

Editor's note: I assigned numbers for the lines to provide a text analysis of this example. The group's lines are indicated by "G" in brackets. The soloist's lines are indicated by "S" in brackets. The entire group's lines are indicated by G&S in brackets.

we do it like this for cheerleading

1. [Group & Soloist] rock the boat dont tip it over 
2. [G&S]  rock the boat dont tip it over 
3. [G] hey_____, 
4. [S] hey what? 
5. [G] hey_____, 
6. [S]hey what? 
7. [G]can u rock the boat? 
8.[S] no way 
9. [G] can u rock the boat? 
10. [S] Ok 
11. she slides she slides
12. she gets on a horse and rides,
13. she dips she dips,
14. she shakes her little hips
15. she wants you and you
16. to rock the boat too
-Brooke Esposito, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9QuTsAtQPY, 2011

****
Example #5: Rock the Boat at Camp Stoughton



Old Colony YMCA, May 20, 2013

If this doesn't get stuck in your head all day, we don't know what will! Rock the boat, don't tip it over. Rock the boat, don't tip it over! -snip-
The children, teens, and adult campers form a circle. Several people are standing in the center of the circle and are basically walking around in a smaller circle until they say these words

"slides and slides"= slide from the right to the left

"ride the horse" = hold one arm up, move that arm around like you are holding a lasso and gallop back and forth".

Here's my transcription of  the words to that version of "Rock The Boat":

Rock the boat
don’t tip it over
Rock the boat
don’t tip it over
Hey guys
Hey what
Rock the boat
No way
Rock the boat
Okay
I slide I slide
I get on the horse and ride
I want you and you to rock the boat too.

[Repeat as many times as the group likes.]

****
This concludes Part II of this series.

Thanks for visiting pancocojams.

Visitor comments are welcome.