Beans, etc, PS: The Battle Hymn...

[Jonathan Lighter]

My grandmother used to recite, as a rhyme:

  "No more pencils, no more books,
  No more teacher's dirty looks."

  That's all she knew. She assured me (in 1954) that it was from her NYC childhood, ca1895.

  My granddaughter currently sings the "hand grenade" verses. Will inquire for her lyrics.

  She also says,

  "Girls rule, boys drool!"

  and

  "Girls go to college to get more knowledge.
  Boys go to Jupiter to get more stupider."

  I pointed out that that could imply that boys are so smart they can only get stupider by going to Jupiter and that girls are in such desperate need of knowledge that they _have_ to go to college. Wow, she _really_ got mad!

  JL



James Harbeck <jharbeck at SYMPATICO.CA> wrote:
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Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: James Harbeck
Subject: Re: Beans, etc, PS: The Battle Hymn...
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Just to add to the spread on this: I learned these same tunes (slight
variations thereon) in school in Alberta in the 1970s. I'm pretty
sure that my first acquaintance with the tune of "On Top of Old
Smokey" was the "on top of spaghetti" version, and thereafter the
version:

On top of old smokey
all covered with sand
I shot my poor teacher
with a red rubber band.
I did it with pleasure
I did it with pride
but how could I miss her?
She's 40 feet wide.
I went to her funeral
I went to her grave
when others threw flowers
I threw a grenade.

The original version was something I was only acquainted with
somewhat later, though I think I figured early on that the song was a
parody of something, so I wasn't surprised to hear the original.

We also had the Battle Hymn of the Republic versions. And we also had
this rather basic song, to a tune I haven't heard elsewhere:

No more school, no more books
no more teacher's dirty looks
no more rats and no more cats
no more teachers to give us straps

Also, this being when it was, we had one to the tune of "Jesus Christ
Superstar." It had a first verse that rhymed "Superstar" with "car",
but I can't remember it; I do remember this verse, though:

When I die
bury me
hang my balls from a cherry tree
when they're ripe
take a bite
don't blame me if they don't taste right

And then, in 1977, Pink Floyd came out with "Another Brick in the
Wall part 2" and blew all the rest of these out of the water. The
kids stopped singing parodies of songs they didn't know anyway and
went straight for "We don't need no education, we don't need no
thought control..."

James Harbeck.

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