Edited by Azizi Powell
Latest Update: September 2, 2022
This pancocojams post presents a few examples of children self-censoring the words to their hand clap rhymes.
By "children self-censoring", I mean children purposely changing a word, or words, and/or actions of a hand clap rhyme in front of adults and/or in front of other children, replacing a curse word or another socially unacceptable word, words,and/or actions with a more socially acceptable substitute.
This post highlights some of my recollections of hosting after-school cultural sessions in the East Liberty/Garfield section of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania as well as my recollections of hosting one time cultural presentations in various (mostly Black) neighborhoods in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and some of its surrounding communities.
This post also includes one online example of children self-censoring the words to their hand clap rhymes. That example was added as a comment to a pancocojams post about "Rockin Robin" (also known as "Twee Lee Lee."
Please add to the folkloric record by sharing in the comment section below any recollections that you have about any rhymes whose words were changed around adults. Please remember to add demographic information, especially where (city, state, or nation outside of the United States) and when (decade that you remember chanting or hearing this rhyme chanted.)
The content of this post is presented for folkloric and cultural purposes.
All copyrights remain with their owners.
Thanks to all those who contributed these rhymes.
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MY RECOLLECTIONS OF CHILDREN SELF-CENSORING THE WORDS TO THEIR HAND CLAP RHYMES
Numbers are added numbers for referencing purposes.
1.
Here's my distinct recollection of a cultural session on
West African folktales that I facilitated around 2001 in the Northview Heights
area of Pittsburgh (Northview Heights is some distance from the East Liberty area where I
lived/live and where I had already collected some examples of what the children
called "Tweeleelee" or "Tweedleelee").
I began that session on African folktales by talking about Black children's rhymes and other oral traditions in this country (the United States).
As usual, when I asked the children assembled at this session which hand claps they knew, lots of children raised their hands and/or just called out the title to "Tweedleelee" hand clap rhyme. I recall that I picked four children to come up to the front of the room -three girls and one boy. (Unlike a number of other hand clap rhymes, boys LOVED to chant this rhyme, but in my experience, they didn't like to do the hand claps in public as much as the girls did.) Tweeleelee was and still is usually performed as a four person hand clap rhyme. My plan was to pick two sets of performers, but for the second set, one boy who I selected decided not to go to the front of the room, and so that group only had three players. But that was okay since "Tweeleelee" is often performed with three players.
The children who were chosen and most of the other children enthusiastically chanted this rhyme. However, when the rhyme came to a certain point, one teenage girl (who I believe was an assistant at that community center) loudly yelled out "Squash!". All the children in the room -except for one young girl-immediately stopped chanting. The teenager even more loudly said "SQUASH!" and the girl stopped chanting.
At that time I didn't know why that teenager wanted the
group to stop sharing that rhyme with me. I remember an adult working there
saying something like "They shouldn't finish that." At the conclusion
of my cultural session-which included me sharing my adaptation of a West
African folk tale with a song- I privately went up to the teenage girl and
asked her would she share the rest of the Tweeleelee rhyme with me, but she
declined to do so.
A few years later (around 2003-2004) I collected a version of
"Tweeleelee" from some elementary school age girls in Fort Pitt school
in the East Liberty/Garfield area of Pittsburgh. That version probably included the verse or a similar verse that the teenage girl didn't want the children to chant. Here's that verse:
"I went downtown to get a stick of butter
I saw James Brown* sittin in the gutter
He had a piece of glass
Stickin in his butt
I never saw a black man run so fast."
-end of quote-
It wasn't until years later that I learned (from reading some online even "dirtier" versions of "Rock Robin"/"Twee Lee Lee") that the verse that is given above is a much cleaner version of that risque rhyme. My guess is that the children who shared that rhyme with me learned that verse that way and didn't change the words because they were reciting it for me. However, I'm not 100% sure of that.
-snip-
*The R&B performer James Brown is the person who is usually named in that verse. Some later examples of this rhyme substitute the name of R&B performer Chris Brown for James Brown, but according to his Wikipedia page Chris Brown didn't start performing to 2002 and the first cultural section I mentioned that was held in North View Heights occurred in 2001.
-snip-
Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2022/07/some-rockin-robin-twee-lee-lee-rhymes_21.html "Some "Rockin Robin" ("Twee Lee Lee") Rhymes" With Geographic Locations (Part II: K - Z)" . That post includes one version of "Rockin Robin" /"Twee Lee Lee" with two very dirty verses. That version was contributed by JeSuisMelBell from New York, 2020, with the contributor's amended spelling for the profanity/sexual references in that example.
**
2. Around 2004 -2006 my daughter and I hosted a once a week after school cultural session for girls at Fort Pitt Elementary School in the East Liberty/Garfield section of Pittsburgh. (My daughter was a teacher at that school). Prior to the beginning of one session, when we were alone in that gymnasium, I asked three girls if they knew the rhyme "Tweeleelee" and whether they would share it with me. Here's a part of their version:
I went downtown to get a stick of butter.
I saw James Brown laying in the gutter
He had a piece of glass stickin in his butta
I never saw a Black man run so fast."
-end of quote-
One of the girls said "sticking in his butt" but another girl-who clearly had the strongest personality of these three girls- loudly chanted the word "butta" and the third girl also said "butta". I asked these girls why they said "butta" in that line and the girl who had loudly chanted that word said "Because that is how it goes" [meaning that's the way the rhyme is supposed to be chanted"]. It seemed clear to me that that girl (and therefore?) the other girls thought that "butt" was a "bad word", but I didn't ask her if that was what she thought.
I don't know if those girls chanted that rhyme that way among themselves and among other children or just changed that word in front of an adult.
Incidently, the girl who insisted that "butta" was the word that should be chanted was seven years old while the other girls were eight years old. That showed me that strong personalities can influence how a group chants a rhyme even if they are the youngest person in that group.
**
3. On January 14, 2011 I told a few adapted African folktales and led an interactive presentation of traditional African instruments at a cultural program in the Hazelwood section of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. That community program was sponsored by members of a historically Black sorority Zeta Phi Beta, Inc. Before that program began, I took the opportunity to collect rhyme examples from Naijah S, an African American girl, age 9, who arrived early with her family. Naijah's mother is a Zeta. Here's one of those rhymes:
Twee lee lee
Tree top
Twee lee lee
My bra
Popscicle popscicle
Your breath stinks.
He rocks in the treetop all day long
huffin' and a puffin' and singin' that song.
all the little birdies on jay bird street
love to hear the robin go tweet tweet tweet.
Momma's in the kitchen, cookin' rice.
Daddy's outside shootin' dice
Brother's in jail ringin that bell.
Sister's outside playing fruit cock tail.
I went to the store to get a stick of butter
I saw Chris Brown singing in the gutter
He had a piece of glass stuck up his sssh
I never knew a Black man run so fast.
-snip-
When I asked Naijah what "sssh" meant, she said it was a bad word and instead of the word, kids said "sssh".
This is an example of children purposely changing a word or words of rhyme among themselves and not only when they chant that rhyme in front of adults
****
TWO ONLINE RECOLLECTIONS ABOUT RHYME BEING CHANGED AROUND ADULTS
Example #1
from http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2018/11/documenting-some-examples-of-verse-from.html "The Origin & Examples Of Rockin Robin/ Tweeleelee" Hand Clap Rhyme's "Mama In The Kitchen" Verse [discussion thread comment]
Anonymous, July 21, 2022
In Virginia Beach in 1991 we used to sing:
Hey! hey!
Rockin in the tree top all day long
Huffin and a puffin and a singing my song
All the little birdies on jaybird street
Like to hear the Robin go
Tweet tweet tweet!
Rocking Robin
tweet tweet a leet
Rocking Robin
tweet tweet a leet
Mama's in the kitchen cooking fried chicken
Daddy's in bed, half way dead
Brothers in school acting a fool
Sisters down the street singing
Do wah diddy diddy dum diddy do"
We also sang the last line as "selling fruit cocktail" but we were all aware of what it meant and did the hand motions, and if our moms heard us we couldn't sing it that way any more!
****
Example #2
From https://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=115045&messages=160
Subject: RE: Not Last Night But The Night Before-rhyme
From GUEST, Van
Date: 06 Jun 16 - 12:27 PM
When I was a kid in Georgia (about 1960), it was "rolling pin" when there were adults around, otherwise it was "bottle of gin".
Not last night but the night before,
Twenty-four robbers came knocking at my door
As I ran out, they ran in,
Hit them on the head with a bottle of gin
One, Two, ... Twenty-four
(If you made it to 24)
Spanish dancer, do the splits
Spanish dancer, do the twist
Spanish dancer, turn around
Spanish dancer, get out of town
-snip-
Warning - Some examples in this discussion thread include what is commonly known as "the n word" as well as some sexually explicit references.
****
AN EXAMPLE OF A WORD IN A RHYME CHANGED AND A WORD LEFT OUT TO BE "NAUGHTY"
[added Sept. 2, 2022]
https://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=94034&page=5
Subject: RE: Origins: Down by the Banks of the Hanky Panky
From: GUEST: CutiefromGA
Date: 05 Dec 08 - 10:10 PM
How come nobody remembers the yanky doodle rhyme at the end? I was born in '84 and grew up in the early nineties and in Atlanta we did it like this:
Down by the river of the hanky panky
where the bullforogs jump from bank to bank
singing eep, ipe, oop, opps
Chillie willy ding dong
Play a game of ping pong
I pledge alligence to the flag
Michael Jackson is a fad (we didn't even know what fag meant growing up let alone say it)
Coca-cola burned him up
Now He's drinking 7-up
7-up has no caffine
now we're singin' "Billie Jean"
"Billie Jean" is out of style
Now we're singing Bobbie Brown
Bobbie Brown is not a song... I forgot what came next as everything goes hazy from here
but then it went into this:
Michael Jackson went to town, riding on a pony
stuck a feather in his hat and called it macoroni
Girl Scout, Girl Scout,
Do your duty,
Don't forget to wash your booty (or tooti if we were naughty... tooti was our slang for vagina)
Boy Scout Boy Scout
Do your trick
don't forget to wash your...
Oh and we didn't jump rope to this, we did the circle hand clap like a few other people said.
-snip-
The contributor didn't clarify if the word that rhymed with "trick" was actually said at the end of that rhyme or just alluded to as is done for the "Miss Susie Had A Steamboat" rhymes.
****
Update: Sept. 14, 2022:
CHANGING THE NAME OF A CELEBRITY OUT OF RESPECT FOR THE DECEASED (MICHAEL JACKSON'S NAME CHANGED IN "DOWN BY THE BANKS OF THE HANKY PANKY" AFTER HE DIED)
We used to do this all the time at school and at camp,
sometimes we freshmen still do it before gym class starts when we're all
sitting around. You sit in a circle with your left hand on top of someone
else's right and your right hand under someone else's left, and you go in a
circle smacking each other's hands as you sing the song:
Down by the banks of the hanky panky
where the bullfrogs jump from bank to banky
Singing eep, op, eep-op-op
bubblegum and soda pop
I pledge allegiance to the flag
Michael Jackson is a fag
Coca-cola brought him up
Now we're drinking 7-up
7-up has no caffeine
Now we're wearing Levi jeans
Levi jeans are out of style
Now we're talking for a while
skiddle diddle piddle bop
bubblegum and soda POP!
and whoever's hand is hit on the last 'pop' is out. Then you
repeat the song getting faster and faster until somebody finally wins.
Sadly we really did and still do sing the line about Michael Jackson being a fag. In elementary and middle school we also had a similar rhyme ("I pledge allegiance to the flag and Michael Jackson is a fag. He used to play with little toys but now he plays with little boys.") and I can remember saying it at a very young age, before I had any idea what a 'fag' was. It was meant to be innocent and not offensive to anybody. Also, since Michael Jackson's death (may he R.I.P.) many people have substituted Lady Gaga or Miley Cyrus for Michael Jackson or changed that line to "Michael Jackson makes me gag". My particular group of friends has done both ("Lady Gaga makes me gag") and I think it's kind of a nice modern version of the song.
****
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