"Let Your Right Foot Slip" And "Let Your Backbone Slip" Verses In Caribbean & African American Singing Games & R&B Songs

Edited by Azizi Powell

Latest edit- April 5, 2020

This is Part I of a two part pancocojams series on the verse "Put your hand on your hips/and let your right foot slip".

Part I provides an overview of this verse and its perhaps better known version that has the second line "and let your backbone slip".

Part II provides selected text excerpts & videos of the children's singing game "Little Sally Walker" and several R&B songs that include the "let your backbone slip" form of this floating verse.

Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2012/08/let-your-backbone-slip-phrase-in-r.html for Part II of this series.

The content of this post is presented for folkloric, recreational, and aesthetic purposes.

All copyrights remain with their owners.

Thanks to the unknown originators of these singing games and thanks to all those who are quoted in this post.

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OVERVIEW OF THE "PUT YOUR HAND ON YOUR HIP AND LET YOUR RIGHT FOOT SLIP" ("LET YOUR BACKBONE SLIP") VERSES
The "let your backbone slip" or "let your right foot slip" and other verses in that singing game are instructional dance calls. An instructional dance call is a spoken or sung line or rhyming verse which a person speaks (calls out) to instruct a group of dancers (such as square dancers) which dance movement or series of dance movement they are to perform.

There is extensive documentation of 19th century pre and post American Civil War Black dance callers, fiddlers, and banjoist performing for White dances, or performing for Black dances. The first song included in Thomas W. Talley's now classic 1922 book Negro Folk Rhymes: Wise & Otherwise is the dance song "Jonah's Band Party". That song is made up of a series of dance calls including those found in this verse:
Setch a kickin' up san'
Jonah's Band!
Setch a kickin' up san'!
Jonah's Band!
"Han's up sixteen! Circle to the right!
We're going to get big eatin's here tonight".*

Thomas W. Talley's collection also includes the still relatively widely known Black dance songs "Juba" and "Jump Jim Crow".*

In the context of the verse "let your backbone slip", the word "backbone" means "the spine". I believe that the verb "slip" means "move loosely" or "be flexible". The line "let your backbone slip" is thus interpreted to mean "shake your hips from side to side".

*A complete online version of Talley's Negro Folk Rhymes is found at http://www.gutenberg.org/files/27195/27195-h/27195-h.htm That version of that now classic collection includes the full spelling of what is now known as "the n word".

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"PUT YOUR HAND ON YOUR HIP" FLOATING VERSE IN THE AFRICAN AMERICAN CHILDREN'S SINGING GAME: ALL AROUND THE KITCHEN
"Put your hands on your hip/and let your backbone slip" is a floating verse that is found in the widely known children's game song "Little Sally Walker" ("Little Sally Waters"). That verse is also sometimes sung as a verse in the less widely known children's song "All Around The Kitchen Cock A Doodle Doodle Do". I don't know which version of the second line ["let your backbone slip" or "let your right foot slip"] is the oldest.

From 1997-2006, I taught the follow the leader movement game "All Around The Kitchen" to children who were part of game song groups & game song special programming events that I facilitated in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania area. "All Around The Kitchen" is a call & response song. The leader (caller) improvises the verses and the group (responders) sing the "Cock-a doodle doodle do" refrain. The singing game's two line verses end in rhyming or near rhyming words.

Here's a comment that I wrote in a 2007 Mudcat folk music forum discussion thread about "All Around The Kitchen" in response to another commenter asking about that singing games.
https://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=104001&threadid=104001#2125148
Subject: Lyr Add:: all around the kitchen cock-a-doodle
From: Azizi
Date: 13 Aug 07 - 08:49 AM

Oh!! I like that song! I sang this song with my children when they were little, and they loved it. And I've used it as part of my repertoire of children's songs at the after-school groups that I facilitated for children 5-12 years old. In addition, I've included it in my repertoire of movement songs for children at summer camps, I encouraged the teen camp aides and adults camp counselors {leaders of specific groups whose roles are somewhat like teachers} to join in the performance of this song. And many of them enjoy do so.

Here's the words I use for this song {but I suppose that you know that "All Around The Kitchen") is a call & response song which is improvisational and open ended, so you can use any rhyming couplets that you want which
give movement directions} :

ALL AROUND THE KITCHEN

Chorus:

Leader
All around the kitchen
Everyone
Cock-a-doddle doodle do

Leader
All around the kitchen
Everyone
Cock-a-doddle doodle do

Verse 1
Leader
Now you stop right still
Everyone
Cock-a-doddle doodle do

Leader
And you turn around
Everyone
Cock-a-doddle doodle do
Leader
Then you touch the ground
Everyone
Cock-a-doddle doodle do

Chorus

-snip-

Other verses I use [each prefaced by "Now you stop right still"] are
And you touch your toes
Then you touch your nose

**
Verse 2
Put your hands on your hips
Cock a doodle doodle do
And let your right foot slip
Cock a doodle doodle do

Verse 3
Put your hand on your ear
and leave it right there

-snip-

At this point I usually go back to the turn around/touch the ground verse.

I should mention that this song is performed in a processional line with the leader in front-of course. The leader and the rest of the group do a chicken clucking movement with their arms placed so that their fists touch or are near to touching, and then the arms are moved up and down to the beat.

I'm interested in "hearing" how others play this singing game, and I'd love to learn new verses to add to the ones I use.

* let your right foot slip phrase is found in a number of African American 19th century dance songs. It is performed by standing still and to the beat of the song doing the following 1.extending your right foot out in front of you & touching the ground with your right toe 2. remain facing forward but pointing your toe right in back of you 3. moving your right foot back to its original position next to the left foot.

[I hope those directions makes sense]

-snip-
I edited this verse as my comment about how the group I led played this game appeared in the middle of the verses. I also edited the wording of the second verse which I corrected later in that discussion thread.

Some versions of the singing game "Little Sally Walters" ("Little Sally Walker") includes the "let your backbone slip" line. Here's a text example for the singing game "Little Sally Walker" from the book Step It Down: Games, Plays, Songs, and Stories from the Afro-American Heritage by Bessie Jones and Bess Lomax Hawes which was first published in 1972:

Little Sally Walker
Sittin in a saucer
A weepin and a crying for a nice young man
Rise, Sally , rise
Wipe your weeping eyes
Put your hand on your hip
And let your backbone slip
Oh, shake it to the East
Oh, shake it to the West
Oh, shake it to the one
that you love the best.

-snip-
That text and a video of "Little Sally Walker" are found in Part II of this series.

The singing games (which are called "plays" by Bessie Jones) are from the Georgia Sea Isles communities of African Americans who are called (and who call themselves) Gullah Geechees.

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INFORMATION ABOUT THE EARLIEST KNOWN DOCUMENTATION OF THE SONG "ALL AROUND THE KITCHEN"
From https://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=104001&threadid=104001

Subject: RE: Folklore: all around the kitchen cock-a-doodle
From: GUEST,Bob Coltman
Date: 14 Aug 07 - 08:54 AM

Hi all ... here's a little background for the song as far as I know it.

"All Around In the Kitchen" was its title when this ring game song was recorded in [1934]* by John A. and Ruby T. Lomax in the countryside near York, Alabama. I believe that is its first appearance, I don't know of any earlier version.

Ruth Crawford Seeger published it in American Folk Songs for Children in 1948, and it got into a lot of school music curriculums because that book was widely circulated among educators. She dropped the word "In" from the title for whatever reason.

Pete Seeger recorded it in the early 1950s on a Folkways album for children, also as "All Around the Kitchen." This gave it even more circulation. That's where I learned it. Hooray for LP records. :)

Bob
-snip-
*Guest, Bob Coltman gave the date "1940" in his comment. However, http://www.stephengriffith.com/folksongindex/all-around-the-kitchen/ includes a photograph of the Lomax's documentation with the date "1934" clearly seen. That online page also includes this information:"EARLIEST DATE: Recorded in 1934 by John A. and Ruby T. Lomax in the countryside near York, Alabama.

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Subject: RE: Folklore: all around the kitchen cock-a-doodle
From: GUEST,Bob Coltman
Date: 14 Aug 07 - 08:58 AM

And Azizi, I should add that the song was sung by a group of African-American children, which confirms your opinion. Bob

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FLOATING VERSE "LET YOUR BACKBONE (OR "RIGHT FOOT") SLIP IN R&B SONGS
The "let your backbone slip" verse is included in the mid 1960s African American Rhythm & Blues songs "Monkey Time (Major Lance -1963), "Baby Workout" (Jackie Wilson -1965), "Shake" (Sam Cooke & Otis Redding, 1966), and "Land Of 1000 Dances" (Wilson Pickett, 1966). Excerpts & videos of these songs are found in Part II of this series.

Other Black vocalists and White vocalists have recorded a number of R&B and Pop covers of these songs. This verse is also found in some Hip-Hop songs. For two examples of pop songs which were recorded by White vocalists that include this verse, click http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTZgWWTlT7c [video no longer available 4/5/2020] for a video of the 1989 song "Resurrection Shuffle" by Tom Jones, and click http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsL2u4J4MG0 for a video of the early 2000 Atom Kitten's song "Get Real".

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HOW "PUT YOUR HAND ON YOUR HIP AND LET YOUR BACKBONE SLIP" OR "LET YOUR RIGHT FOOT SLIP" IS PERFORMED
The song "Little Sally Waters" is included in the 1997 book Brown Girl In The Ring: An Anthology Of Songs Games From The Eastern Caribbean by Alan Lomax, J. D. Elder, and Bess Lomax Hawes. The title "Little Sally Waters" is an older form of the title "Little Sally Walker". In the above named book, that singing game includes the verse "put your hands on your hips, let your backbone shake". Part of the play instructions for that song which is given in that book indicate that the girl in the center of the ring selects a partner and "The two then put their hands on their hips and "shake their backbones" in the familiar Caribbean "winding" motion."

In the United States, a 1970s video of Bessie Jones leading children & adults in the performance of the game "Little Sally Walker" shows the person in the middle miming the words of that song. Part of that mime is for the person in the middle of the ring putting their hands on their hips and shaking their hips from side to side while the group sings the "put your hands on your hips & let your backbone slip" words.

In part because R&B & Pop dance songs focus on tunes more than words, I don't believe that most females dancing to songs in the 1960s & on that include this featured verse necessarily did anything different when (or if) they heard that verse. Videos of those dances (as found in Part II of this series) show most of the White studio dancers just continuing to do whatever dance moves they were doing before those lyrics were sung. Other videos show those dancers putting their hands on their hips and shaking their hips back & forth. I assume that hand on your hip/hip shaking movement is the what is "supposed to be done" for the words "let your backbone slip" - with "backbone" in this context meaning "spin" and "slip" in this context meaning "be flexible".

From 1997-2006 I taught the movement game "All Around The Kitchen" & other old & adapted African American game songs to groups of (mostly Black) children, their adult & teen staff, and some of their parents/grandparents who also were encouraged to participate in these sessions in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania & the surrounding area. I should mention that neither the adult staff, volunteers, parents, and grandparents who attended these sessions nor the children who attended knew this singing game, and they didn't know the "let your right foot slip" movement. They also didn't know what "strut" meant in the line from the "Zudio" singing game "struttin down the alley".

I taught those groups the following movements to do for those lyric:
(All movements are performed to the beat while standing in place)

1.Put your hands on your hips when that line is sung
1. On the word "let" - extend your right foot toe pointing in front of you

2. On the word "your" - place your foot directly in back of your position

3. On the words "right foot" - point your right foot in front of you

4. On the word "slip" - return your right foot flat next to your left foot

This may be the "traditional" way that "let your right foot slip" was/is performed or it may be a dance routine that I observed somewhere & made my own. I don't remember how I learned this version of "All Around The Kitchen", but I know that I didn't make it up. I'm not a dancer or a choreographer so it's unlikely that I made up this routine by myself.

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