This is how it went, best as I can remember it:

[timepiececlock]

Miss Suzy Had A Steamboat - meme

Did you used to sing this song in pre- and elementry school? With the complicated hand clapping and everything? I did. And this is the version the kids at my school sang:


Miss Suzy had a steamboat;
the steamboat had a belt (toot toot!)
Miss Suzy went to heaven,
the steamboat went to
Hell-o opeterator, please give me number 9
and if you disconnect me, I'll chop off your
behind the frigerator
there lay a piece of glass.
Miss Suzy sat upon it, and broke her little
ask me no more questions
I'll tell you not more lies
The boys are in the bathroom, zipping up their
flies are in the meadow;
the bees are in the park;
Miss Suzy and her boyfriend
are kissing in the
D-A-R-K
D-A-R-K
dark dark dark!
The dark is is like a movie,
the movie's like a show.
A show is on the TV-set
and that is all I
know I know my Ma,
I know I know my Pa,
I know I know my sister
with the 49-er bra!
My mother gave me a nickel;
my father gave me a dime;
my sister gave me a boyfriend
who kissed me all the time.
He made me wash the dishes.
He made me clean the floor.
He made me scrub his underwear so I kicked him out the door!
I kicked him over London,
I kicked him over France,
I kicked him so far up you could see his underpants!


-
Alas, I don't think the last line is quite right. It keeps escaping me. There used to be even more... or maybe it was a separate one. But used to know at least 3 more of these kind of chants.

Does anyone know this one? It comes with much more complex hand-movements tahn the one above. I think it was used to teach vowel sounds.

Down by the banks of the hanky-panky
Where the bullfrogs jump from bank to banky
Where the eeps, ipes, opes, owpes,
Fell in the water and it went
ker-PLOP! ::be the faster person to smack your partner on the head::

Comments

[icafreak.livejournal.com]

My cousin and I were trying to remember the words to the Miss Suzy thing last month! We could not get passed the flies line.

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

was yours like this, or different?

[icafreak.livejournal.com]

Some words were a little different, instead of 'the steamboat had a belt' it was 'the steamboat had a bell'. Instead of chop, it was cut. Little things like that. I don't think we had any of the stuff after the 'I know I know' part either.

Did you ever sing "Say Say Oh Playmate" and any of the millions of variasions? Damn, little kids are so sad. :)

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

Say Say Oh Playmate! Of course. Actually, I think I learned that in class, or from song tapes or something, as opposed to the other one which I learned from singing on the playground and not from any adult source at all.

We also had the evil Murder!Death!Kill version called Say Say Oh Enemy.

Say say oh enemy,
come out an fight with me
And brign your pitbulls three
...
...
Slide down my razor blade
Go through my dungeon door..
...

...

That's all I can remember of that version. We sang the regular way too.

::sigh:: razorblades, pitbulls... we were a violently happy community of kids.

[icafreak.livejournal.com]

Now this one I remember

Say say oh enemy
come out and fight with me
And bring your shotguns three
Climb up my poison tree
Slide down my razor blade
Into my dungeon door
And we'll be jolly enemies
Forever more more
Lock the door

I'm not so sure about the jolly part, that might just be a hold over from the original. :) We had hand motions too. It was like a secret club, those who knew the songs and those who wanted to.

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

That's it! It's the same for me, except with pitbulls instead of shotguns.

[hecatehatesthat.livejournal.com]

We had pitchforks (why couldn't we have had shotguns or pitbulls? Man, you guys got to be eviller) and slid down lightning. Which is also probably less evil than sliding down a razor blade (ow!) but it's a neat image: lightning stretching into the dungeon door.

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

but it's a neat image: lightning stretching into the dungeon door.

So like, if you're an angel or a diety or something and you get booted out of heaven for bad behavior, not only are you cast down via lightning but they send you right directly to a dugeon too.

Sorry... my brain takes weird trains of thought.

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

hand motions? Ours was a clapping chant, like Miss Suzy. And yep, we said jolly too. :)

[hecatehatesthat.livejournal.com]

Our Miss Lucy wasn't quite as long, and piece of glass went right up her ask me no more questions, and our boys were pulling down, not zipping up their flies, but yeah. And I think the sister had an 18-hour bra. I never knew what that meant.

And our bullfrogs said, "eep, op, eep-op-op, skiddle, diddle, ker-PLOP!"

But yeah.

The most complicated of those hand games, though, was "Rockin Robin." There were two, three, and four-person varieties, and all required you remember which direction you had last group-clapped in so you wouldn't mess up the next group-clap, and in between were individual motions...

Swing, swing, swing, to the limousine, hey hey!

She rocks in the treetops all day long
hoppin and a' boppin and a'singin her song
all the little birdies on Jay Bird Street
love to hear the robin go
"tweet, tweet, tweet!"
Rockin' Robin
tweet, tweet-a-leet
Rockin' Robin
tweet, tweet-a-leet

Mama's in the kitchen, fryin' rice
Papa's in the bathroom, shootin' mice
brother's in jail, peein' in a pail
sister's in a corner eatin' fruit cocktail
Rockin' Robin
tweet, tweet-a-leet
Rockin' Robin
tweet, tweet-a-leet

...and so on. I don't remember all the rest. And there was another one about... big macs and milkshakes I don't remember, and "Bobo Ski-wot 'n tot" which I can still do all the hand motions to, because it took me so long to learn them. And "slide" which was just the same motions over and over again repeated as fast as possible once, then each motion twice, then each three times, and on and on as high as you could go.

I'll stop listing them now, but yeah, those were big at my elementary school. Even the boys did them.

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

I never did Rockin Robin. Doesn't even look familiar to me.

We had a different one we did for a large group though, one that was fairly complicated, and eventually cut down a person each time until there were only two. But it was regular enough that you could estimate who would lose by the sitting order. I don't remember the tune for that at all.

You know the bullfrog one! Did you have this clap thing that was face to face with two people, and you start with your hands touching on the backside and end up clapping at 3 heights?

I used to know one other that's completely out of my head... something to do with rocking chairs and being sick and letters that fell on your shirt and a "freeze!" moment, and began with a clock or something...

[http://users.livejournal.com/automatedalice_/]

my edits in ()...

Miss Suzy had a steamboat;
the steamboat had a belt
Miss Suzy went to heaven,
the steamboat went to
(hello operator, give me number 9)
and if you disconnect me, I'll (kick)
behind the frigerator
(was) a piece of glass.
Miss Suzy sat upon it, and (cut) her little
ask me no more questions
(tell me no more lies)
(the cows are in the pasture)
(making chocolate pies)
(& lemon-ade).

gross, much?

miss mary mack (mack mack)
all dressed in black (black black)
with silver buttons (buttons buttons)
all down her back (back back)
she asked her mother (mother mother)
for fifty cent (cents cents)
to see the elephants (elephants elephans)
go jump the fence (fence fence)
they jumped so high (high high)
they never came back (back back)
til the 4th of july (lie lie)
liar!

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

Ah, the Miss Mary Mack one! I haven't been able to remember the words to that in forever. But yours looks exactly like how mine way.