Chester (Have You Heard About Harry) lyrics & videos

Edited by Azizi Powell

Latest revision: November 18, 2020

This pancocojams post showcases examples of children's song "Chester" (Have You Heard About Harry").

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

All copyrights remain with their owners.

Thanks also to the unknown composer of this song. Thanks to all those featured in these examples. Also, thanks to all those who are quoted in this post and thanks to the publishers of these examples on YouTube. 

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A VERSION OF "CHESTER" THAT MY CHILDREN TAUGHT ME FROM SUMMER CAMP 
My children learned this song from their summer camp in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in the mid 1980s. They motions that they showed me for this song were quite similar to the ones that are given in the videos below and in the text examples. However, the stretched out the beginning word "Ohhhh" and did the outstretched "Jazz hands" motion. For the word "army", they touched their right arm and raised their right knee. Also the motion for the word "hip" was more exaggerated as they switched their hips from the right to the left. The motion for "back" was also more exaggerated as they performed a motion where they turned half around and pretended to loudly hit their back. They sung "wear clothes" instead of "wear a rose" and I don't remember the renditions getting faster. They sung every motion during each rendition of this song instead of adding new motions every time the song was sung. 

 Also, the tune that they learned at camp wasn't as "Yankee Doodle". The tune they used was considerably slower and was somewhat like the tune for the children's rhyme "Playmate" (come out and play with me).

It occurs to me that for the word "army" you could touch your arm, and point to yourself (to represent the word "me"), but my children's camp didn't do this.

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FEATURED ONLINE EXAMPLES AND LYRICS

Example 1:
From http://www.songsforscouts.com/Songs/Chester/
"Lyrics
Chester, have you heard about Harry? (pat chest, point, tug earlobe, pat head)

He just got back from the Army. (thumb back, pat back, pat arm, pat chest)

I hear he knows how to wear a rose, (point to eye, tug earlobe, thumb back, touch nose, tuck an imaginary rose in your lapel)

Hip, hip! Hooray for the Army! (slap left hip, slap right hip, raise fist to the sky, pat arm, pat chest)
-snip-
A number of examples of this song indicate that it is sung to the tune "Yankee Doodle". Some examples indicate that the song gets faster each time you sing it. I've read one example of this song that indicates that instead of doing each of the movements when you sing the entire song, you sing the first verse without any movements, and add one movement each time you sing it. Others you do each indicated body movement for the word that is sung like it.

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Example #2: Chester



nannakelzee, Uploaded on Oct 5, 2010

Oh, Chester have you heard about Harry
Just got back from the army
I heard he knows how to wear his clothes
Hip, hip hurray for the army.
-snip-
Here's another example from this video's discussion forum:

BrookeRiverStream, 2012
There's another part Chester have u heard about Harry just got back from the army he needs to learn to face defeat hip hip horrah for the army...
-snip-
Here's another example of that same version:
From http://www.angelfire.com/hi5/troop43/Songs.html Girl Scout Songs

Chester
(Touch each body part named in the song)

Oh, Chester, have you heard about Harry?
He just got back from the army.
You need not know he faced defeat.
Hip, hip hooray for the army.
-snip-
"Faced" = touch your face
defeat= touch or point to your feet

Note that the word "de" is a colloquial way of saying "the". 

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Example #3: Eva singing



carjogo, Uploaded on May 12, 2010

Chester, have you heard about Harry? He just got back from the army...
Cute song Eva learned at pre-school.
-snip-
Lyrics:

Chester have you heard about Harry
He just got back from the army
He says he knows how to wear his clothes
Hip, hip hurray for the army.
Another example:

chester have u heard about harry
chest* got back from the army
i hear he knows how to touch his toes
hip hip hooray for the army
-snip-
"chest" is a vernacular pronunciation of the word “just”

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Example #4: Harry Chester Army Song



l61flynn Published on Jun 26, 2013
-snip-
Lyrics:

Howdy Chester have u heard about harry
He just got back from the army
i hear he knows how to wear his clothes
hip hip hooray for the army


A fun song to sing with your students.
Sung by Leslie Bertram at Core Academy 2013.

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