Click here to visit ...

Monday, August 16, 2010

Froggy went a beadin' ...

Last week, when I wrote the weekly update for the store, I borrowed an old song and mangled it to suit my purposes.

And I was floored, absolutely floored I tell you, to discover that quite a few folks did NOT recognize the song reference! Omigawd - I had no idea you had such deprived childhoods!

So - to set the record straight - "Froggy went a beadin'" is a corruption of "Froggy went a courtin'." I think of it as a classic children's song/folk song - you know the type, with a million verses, very repetitive.

Google and youtube will get you lots of hits. Here's a nice, soft version, (below, suitable for amusing the kiddies.




But everyone has done it, including Bob Dylan (lyrics) and Elvis! ( I think Elvis was on uppers when he did his version.)

And according to Wiki, the song dates back to the mid-1500's. Sometime after that, it underwent a satirical re-write to lampoon the courtship of Elizabeth I by the Duke of Anjou. So, not only has it been around for a long time, but I'm not the first person to bend it to their own purpose.

Well - I wasn't trying to be all literary - but it got me thinking about those iconic childhood memories. Now, for me, not being musically inclined - those formative memories are all about books. Favourite childhood books. Before I discovered science fiction - which quite possibly represented a passage from childhood into the next stage of development - not adulthood exactly, but that point at which you realize that you are part of something larger.

Anyway - what about you? Books or Songs? Or something else? Movies? Those comforting experiences that you lived over and over and over. A book that you read the print off the pages? What was it? And when the time came, did you share it with your kids?

Leave your thoughts in the comments. Next week - I'll tell you mine.

3 comments:

Zena said...

Geez, am I the only geezer who's had that stinkin' song stuck in my head all week long?!

And here I thought misery loved company...

Uh huh, uh huh...

Carol Tannahill said...

You brought back memories of 2nd grade. I had a music teacher who taught us traditional English folk songs (it was the 70s) like this and Lady Maisry (what a song for 7 year olds...) and that one where Lord Randall gets poisoned (another bloodthirsty song.) I didn't teach them to my kids, mainly because after so many years I don't remember the words.

Lyndsey said...

Your Froggy Went a-courting take off had the song stuck in my head for days, and cracked me up to boot. It didn't hurt that I had just discovered frogs for the first time in 7 years of having s small pond in my backyard. I tried to get the song stuck in my husband's head (because misery loves company) but he didn't know it at all! And I was shocked at that!