Skipping to rhyming and repetitive songs

Rhyming is of course a very common feature of skipping songs. Songs that rhyme are easy to remember. These lyrics seemed governed more by rhyme than logic or imagery:

I went downtown to meet Miss Brown
She gave me a nickel, I bought a pickle
The pickle was sour, I bought a flower
The flower was dead, I bought some thread
The thread was thin, I bought a pin
The pin was sharp, I bought a harp
The harp sang (now we're speeding up to skip pepper)
Johnny over the ocean, Johnny over the sea
Johnny broke a milk bottle and blamed it onto me
I told Ma, Ma told Pa and Johnny got a lickin' so ha-ha-ha!
(those were the old days of glass milk bottles and spankings)

Repetition is much favoured when complex actions are involved. In these songs the repeated phrase is followed by the instructions:

Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear, turn around
Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear, touch the ground

Spanish Dancer, do the splits
Spanish Dancer, give a high kick
Spanish Dancer, turn around
Spanish Dancer, touch the ground.

Spelling can be involved too, as in this contribution recalled by Marianna:

(Name) and (Name) sitting in a tree
K-I-S-S-I-N-G

Tomorrow I move to a new topic. Still, I'd love to hear some of the songs you skipped to -- from anywhere in the world.

Skipping, counting and ABCs

Another feature of skipping songs is the common presence of letters and numbers, which are often used as cues for the skipper to begin and end a skipping turn while two others turn the rope.

Children are instinctively aware that they learn by using their senses. This could be one reason why numbers and crop up in rhymes like the following:

Cinderella dressed in yellow
Went upstairs to kiss her fellow
By mistake she kissed a snake
How many doctors did it take? 1,2,3...

Here's one that involves jumping in and out of the ropes while reciting the months of the year.

Two little birdies sitting on a wall
One named Peter, the other named Paul
Fly away Peter (first child jumps out)
Fly away Paul (other child jumps out)
Come back Peter
Come back Paul
But don't come in till your birthday's called:
January, February, March, etc.

Other songs involve ABCs and days of the week.

As well as being good exercise, skipping helps children consolidate basic literacy and numeracy skills.

Skipping song lyrics cause motherly bias

Photo: Skipping Workshops

Skipping songs varied from one prairie town to another. One day we went from Ryley to nearby Tofield. While we waited for Dad, I watched some kids skipping in the street, and told my mother I wanted to play with them.

Very unfairly, I thought, Mom made me stay in the car. These kids, she judged, were "saucy."

Meanwhile, I admired a girl with pretty curls and a very dirty face. Wistful, I watched from the open car window while she shrieked with laughter as she jumped in while the others sang:

Help! Murder! Police!
Melody fell in the grease.
She laughed so hard she fell in the lard.
Help! Murder! Police!

Melody, I thought. What a lovely name. And like my own name, it meant music. But the first lines of the skipping song were not nice. Perhaps that's what set Mom against the kids.

Polar bears in skipping song

Photo: BBC news photo, 2005

Skipping songs reflect changing history and social norms. In these days of global warming and threatened species, this skipping rhyme from the fifties takes on a tragic air.

Hello, hello, hello, sir,
Are you coming out, sir?

No sir,
Why sir?
Because I've got a cold, sir.
Where did you get the cold sir?
From the North Pole, sir.
What were you doing there sir?
Catching polar bear, sir.
How many did you catch, sir?
One, two, three, sir,
That's enough for me, sir.If this song is still used, it must be a different version. I very much doubt the same words would be used by today's children.

Sociology of skipping songs

As a child I loved skipping. Classic examples of traditional rhymes that get passed down and altered over generations, skipping songs and chants hooked my imagination.

I've often wondered where they came from originally. One English friend of my mother's generation skipped to some of the same songs I did, with minor variations. That's one clue.

This popular classic was used in the sixties; there were no tinkers.

Mississippi lives by the shore;
She has children 2 and 4.
The oldest one is twenty-four so who shall she marry?
Tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor?
Rich man, poor man, beggar, thief?
Doctor, lawyer, Indian chief?
Royal Canadian Mounted Police?

We skipped slowly to the first four lines. Then the pace accelerated to "pepper." Only the most nimble footed could avoid tripping long enough to marry an Indian chief or Mountie.

This was a common feature of these interactive songs. At the moment you tripped up, you got some prediction about your grown-up self. Children in unsupervised play seem to spontaneously come up with such things.

The world of childhood changes with the generations. Do children still skip and chant these traditional rhymes? Do children in other countries sing similar ones? I'd love to know.

The bliss of outdoor play

We're born to be connected to the earth below us and the cosmos above, and that sense of connection begins with outdoor play.

A generation or so ago, when society was less urbanized, children had a lot more space and freedom for play. They walked to school and home, and most kids played outside before and after supper.

In more northern latitudes, darkness came late and the summers brought the freedom to play later, usually until dusk fell. All we had to do was go home when our mothers called us.

With only each other and our dog for company, we walked in the woods by the river and built rafts on the creek. We walked along the railroad tracks and went fishing and climbed the local hills and mountains. We rode horses at the lake, and as our house had two wood stoves, we also chopped and carried a lot of firewood.

Though the high school was over a mile away, walking there was the norm. In the higher grades, a few kids with licenses drove to school.

Past generations of kids had fewer indoor distractions. We had no TV when I was growing up, and computers hadn't been invented. Our indoor toys were paper, pencils, crayons, paints and books. Winter was difficult not because we couldn't play outside, because we did, but because outdoor play was limited by early darkness.

Today's children live very different lives. Yet outdoor play can still provide a kind of bliss that no indoor activity ever can. It's beneficial for the brain, too.

The blue-crowned Stellar's Jay announces spring

Photo: Alan D. Wilson, Wikimedia

The cold winter continued all through March, even as the crocus and daffodils came out on schedule. April's been a bit warmer.

I experienced a sign of spring when I opened the back door and saw a flash of blue as a Stellar's Jay landed in a cedar tree. Staying very still I waited for the bird to ruffle its brilliant plumage and flaunt the crown of feathers.

The birds out here in the suburbs are different from urban birds. Years ago, when we moved from East Vancouver to Surrey, I saw the first jay I'd seen in ages. At the time, I was piggybacking my five-year-old through a stretch of unaltered native vegetation. Seeing the blue jay made me feel we were in the country, or a small town.

The blue bird of happiness flew by today, and he was a Stellar's Jay, only a few feet away.