Edited by Azizi Powell
Latest revision - August 17, 2023
This pancocojams post is part of an ongoing pancocojams series on Old Time music sources for the large family of "Miss Susie Had A Steamboat" and Miss Lucy Had A Baby" children's playground rhymes.
This pancocojams post presents information about and examples of the Old Time song/ rhymes entitled "My Lula Gal". This pancocojams post also presents information about and a few relatively dirty versions of the "Bang Bang Lulu" rhymes and songs.
The content of this post is presented for folkloric and cultural purposes.
Thanks to the unknown composers of these rhymes and songs and thanks also to all those who are quoted in this post.
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Click http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2013/10/similarities-differences-between-bang.html for a 2013 pancocojams post entitled "Similarities & Differences Between "Bang Bang Lulu" & "Miss Lucy Had A Steamboat".
Also, click http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2021/04/mighty-sparrow-bang-bang-lulu-calypso.html for the pancocojams post entitled "Mighty Sparrow - "Bang Bang Lulu" (Calypso sound file, lyrics, & comments)."
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WARNING- This post includes lyrics that aren't suitable for children.
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INFORMATION ABOUT & EXAMPLES OF "MY LULA GAL " AND "BANG BANG LULU" SONGS AND CHANTS
Excerpt #1
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bang_Bang_Lulu
" "Bang Bang Lulu" is a traditional American song
with many variations. It derives from older songs most commonly known as
"Bang Bang Rosie" in Ireland, "Bang Away Lulu" in
Appalachia,[1] and "My Lula Gal" in the West.[2][6] The form
"Bang Bang Lulu" became widespread in the United States from its use
as a cadence during the World Wars. The song uses the tune of "Goodnight,
Ladies".
Traditional song
All versions concern a woman and her various lovers. The
early forms were sometimes very directly crude, violent, or infanticidal.[7]
Published versions probably drastically understate the song's popularity,[1]
particularly since the first mentions allude to 78[8] or 900[9] additional
verses unfit for printing. Robert Gordon, the first head of the Library of
Congress's Archive of American Folk Song, included his variants of Lulu among
the "Inferno" section which was excluded from the library's general
collection for its "bawdy and scatological subject matter".[10]
One verse appeared in Owen Wister's 1902 novel on p. 96 The
Virginian:[8]
"If you go to monkey with my Looloo girl,
I'll tell you what I'll do:
I'll carve out your heart with my razor, AND
I'll shoot you with my pistol, too—
Nine appeared in Carl Sandburg's 1927 American Songbag among
its "Railroad and Work Gangs" songs, including Wister's and:[9]
My Lulu hugged and kissed me,
She wrung my hand and cried,
She said I was the sweetest thing
That ever lived or died.[11]
My Lulu's tall and slender,
My Lulu gal's tall and slim;
But the only thing that satisfies her
Is a good big drink of gin.
My Lulu gal's a daisy,
She wears a big white hat;
I bet your life when I'm in town
The dudes all hit the flat.
I ain't goin' to work on the railroad,
I ain't goin' to lie in jail,
But I'm goin' down to Cheyenne town
To live with my Lulu gal.
My Lulu, she's an angel,
Only she aint got no wings.
I guess I'll get her a wedding ring,
When the grass gets green next spring.
My Lulu, she's a dandy,
She stands and drinks like a man,
She calls for gin and brandy,
And she doesn't give a damn.
Engineer blowed the whistle,
Fireman rang the bell,
Lulu, in a pink kimona
Says, "Baby, oh fare you well."
I seen my Lulu in the springtime,
I seen her in the fall;
She wrote me a letter in the winter time,
Says, "Good-bye, honey," that's all.
Sandburg credited many of the verses he knew as derived from the 17th-century Scotch song "Way Up on Clinch Mountain",[12] now usually known as "Rye Whiskey".
Roy Acuff and his Crazy Tennesseans recorded "When Lulu's Gone" under the pseudonym of the Bang Boys in 1936.[13] Another version—"Lulu"—was recorded by Oscar Brand on his 1958 Old Time Bawdy Sea Shanties. Verses from this song also developed into "Roll in My Sweet Baby's Arms", recorded by Bill Monroe and Flatt & Scruggs and many others after them.[2]
Military cadences
Most military cadences suggested explicit rhymes but skipped back to the chorus rather than complete them ...
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Excerpt #2
From https://secondhandsongs.com/work/59534/all
Alternative titles: "When Lulu's Gone", "Bang Away, My Lulu", "She Is a Lulu" and many others. Sometimes "Lulu" becomes "Rosie", "Suzie", "Lula" and so on."
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Excerpt #3
From http://kristinhall.org/songbook/SeaAndPub/BangBangLulu.html
Bang Bang Lulu: Words & Music: Traditional Drinking Song
"What do people do with children's songs when they grow up and tie one on with like-minded pals? They morph them into drinking songs. The basic tune is the same as "Miss Lucy". Since this is a traditional song, there are as many verses as there are drunken voices to sing them. My favorite versions are the ones that allude to the "naughty words", but never have to actually say them. That's the one I learned at camp and I like the clever wordplay. Here is the chorus and a slew of verses. Have fun with them or make up your own.
CHORUS:
D A7
Bang, bang, Lulu; Lulu, bang, bang.
[alt: "Bang, bang, Lulu; Lulu's gone away"]
D G D A7 D
Who's gonna bang bang Lulu, now that Lulu's gone away?
[alt: Who's gonna bang bang, now Lulu's gone away?}
D A7
Lulu had a boyfriend who drove a garbage truck.
D G D A7
Never collected garbage, 'cause all he did was...
CHORUS:
She had another boyfriend, his name was Tommy Tucker.
He took her to the garden, to see if he could...
CHORUS:
Lulu had a baby, named him Jungle Jim.
Put him in the basin, to see if he could swim.
He swam down to the bottom, came back to the top.
Lulu got excited, pulled him out by his...
CHORUS:
Cocktail, ginger ale, five cents a glass.
If you don't like it, you can throw it up your...
Ask me no more questions, I'll tell you no more lies.
Ask me that again, and I'll spit right into your...
CHORUS:
Ikey and Spikey, laying in the ditch
Ikey called Spikey, a dirty son of a...
CHORUS:
Bring down the children, let them play with rocks.
When they get a little older, they'll learn to play with...
CHORUS:
[...]
CHORUS:
High upon the mountain, sitting on the grass
Her skirt was so short, it showed you all her...
CHORUS:
[...]
CHORUS:
Now, Lulu has two boyfriends, they both are very rich.
One, the son of a banker, the other a son of a...
CHORUS:
Now, Lulu had a baby, it came as quite a shock.
She couldn't name it "Lulu", because it had a..."
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Visitor comments are welcome.
Here's a verse from https://www.horntip.com/html/books_&_MSS/1910s/1917-1933_gordon_inferno_collection_(MSS)/index.htm#3144-lulu that clearly shows the playground rhym "Miss Lucy Had Baby"'s connection to "Bang Bang Lulu"
ReplyDelete"My Lulu had a baby
She called him Sunny Jim
She put him in the sh&t*-pot
To see if he could swim."
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*This word is fully spelled out in this rhyme.
Additional verses are found on that page.
Here's information from that page about this collection:
"Gordon 'Inferno' (1917-33)
The Robert W. Gordon "Inferno" Collection
in the Archive of Folk Song, Library of Congress
The 'Inferno' collection consists of original correspondence and typescript copies of letters (~200 pages) that either Gordon or someone else separated out -- because of their bawdy and scatological subject matter -- from the materials he received and compiled as first head of the folklife department at the Library of Congress. Prefaced to the 'Inferno' collection is a 14 page index which lists informant, date, location and title of the texts."
The standard beginning verse for "Miss Lucy Had A Baby" is
Delete"Miss Lucy had a baby.
His name was Tiny Tim
She put him in a bathtub
To see if he could swim"...
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Here's an excerpt about this rhyme from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miss_Lucy_had_a_baby:
""Miss Lucy had a baby...", also known by various other names,[9] is an American schoolyard rhyme. Originally used as a jump-rope chant, it is now more often sung alone or as part of a clapping game. It has many variations, possibly originating from it, or from its predecessors.[10][11]
The song is often combined or confused with the similar but cruder "Miss Susie had a steamboat", which uses the same tune and was also used as a jump-rope game.
Structure
...The song shares much of the same melody as the 1937 "The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down" used by Warner Bros. as the theme to their Looney Tunes cartoons.[12]
...The history of the Miss Susie similar rhyme has been studied, tracing it back to the 1950s, in Josepha Sherman's article published by the American Folklore Society.[13] However, several other books and articles show similar versions used as far back as the end of the 19th century.[14]
"Miss Lucy" probably developed from verses of much older (and cruder) songs, although the opposite may also be true,[15] most commonly known as "Bang Bang Rosie" in Britain, "Bang Away Lulu" in Appalachia,[14] and "My Lula Gal" in the West.[4][16] These songs were sometimes political, usually openly crude, and occasionally infanticidal.
In those songs, the baby, that was dropped in the chamber pot bathtub, was referencing an enormously popular mascot of Force cereal named Sunny Jim, introduced in the United States in 1902 and in Britain a few years later. Following his declining popularity, the baby is now usually encountered as Tiny Tim, once famous as a Depression-era comic strip and still well known as a character in Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol.[8] The verse was first recorded as a joke in the 1920s and as the modern children's song in New York in 1938.[4] Although the song derives from lyrics about an unwed whore, few children consider that Miss Lucy might be unmarried; instead, the concern of the song has shifted to the appearance of new siblings. The opening lines now often change to "My mother had a baby..." or "I had a little brother."...
Here's an example of "Lulu Had A Steamboat" in which the chorus is sung in place of the curse word, the sexually explicit word, or the otherwise offensive word or reference.
ReplyDelete"The way I knew it in the 50s, was:
Lulu had a steamboat; steamboat had a bell; Lulu went to heaven; steamboat went to
Bang away on Lulu, bang away all day. Who you gonna bang on when Lulu's gone away?
Lulu had a chicken; she also had a duck; She put them on the table to see if they would
Bang away on Lulu, bang away all day. Who you gonna bang on when Lulu's gone away?
Lulu spilled her orange juice, Lulu broke her glass; Then she slipped upon it and broke her little
Bang away on Lulu, bang away all day. Who you gonna bang on when Lulu's gone away?
Ask me no more questions; I'll tell you no more lies; Lulu got hit with a bucket of sh-t*, right between the eyes!"
-Downeast Bob, 1 Oct 97, Naughty kids' greatest hits, https://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=2794
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However, notice that the word "sh&t" was still included in that example. Also, the word "bang" in these songs, rhymes, and chants means "have sex" or "have sex with".
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Instead of that strategy, in contemporary "Miss Susie Had A Steamboat" children's rhymes an innocuous ("clean") word or reference is used in place of the "dirty" word or reference.