Making "obscene" versions of songs

[Arokthis (imported)]

Every time I hear "When I'm Gone" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cups_(song) I have to keep myself from giggling like a maniac because my twisted mind changes it to "When they're gone" as if she singing to a guy who's going to be neutered.

Does anyone else do this sort of thing?

[A-1 (imported)]

"Went to a dance, looking for romance, saw Barbara Ann and I JUMPED in her pants..."

(There are others, I only recall one from pre-teen years watching Popeye cartoons...)

Olive: Who's that knocking at my door, Who's that knocking at my door, Who's that knocking at my door, ...asked the fair, young maiden...

Bluto: OPEN THE DOOR YOU DIRTY WHORE IT'S BARNACLE BILL THE SAILOR... (Can't remember the rest...)

Maybe I will re-visit this later when I remember something else...

[Dave (imported)]

Look up BAWDY BALLADS or DIRTY DITTIES and you'll find some rather obscene substitute lyrics.

or try

Charlotte the Harlot

Caviar Comes From Virgin Sturgeon

Do you balls hang low? Do they Swing to and fro?

Oh dear what can the matter be? Seven old ladies locked in a lava-try. . .

Deck the Halls with Pledges Balls

The great fucking wheel

Or the text:

"Twas the night of the King's castration and the royal ball was coming off. Counts, No-acounts, viscounts and discounts stood in the yard camel dunging each other for in those days bull shit was not yet invented."

[cheetaking243 (imported)]

My roommate Jenny got me started on singing "Hold me closer, Tony Danza" every time Elton John's "Tiny Dancer" comes on the radio. Not sure if that counts or not. :p

[Uncle Flo (imported)]

How about "Love is a long and Slender Thing" or "I Wonder Who's Kissing Her Now (Whatever her Now Is)" ? Not to mention the many songs I made my own lyrics for. --FLO--

[Dave (imported)]

Foster and Brand do a rousing version of

"Seven Old Ladies" locked in a lavatry (phonetic spelling)

It's a rather famous drinking song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=csRFt_N9jRw

They ask do "BANG BANG ROSIE"

which is a delightful bit of fun!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdnM76XKh2Q

Then there's the "PHEASANT PLUCKER" which might sound different when you're drunk.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azI94W7ZuGY

[Paolo]

My old boss used to be fond of the classic "You don't have to say you love me," and would add "Just sit on my face."

[JesusA (imported)]

I think of such songs as part of every normal (at least normal male) childhood. I don't have enough experience with girl children to be certain about them, though I assume it's part of their childhood too. My first book (and a lot of my early research) was about normal male childhood in rural Japan. The boys there had such songs, as well as plenty of dirty jokes and obscene Chinese characters to write on bathroom walls. (The obscene characters don't seem to appear in any Japanese dictionary that I've found, though every Japanese I've asked has known them!)

My grandson first regaled me with "Jingle bells, Batman smells...." when he was six years old. He learned it from a seven year-old boy. He went on to learn several dozen more song parodies just that year – some of them borderline obscene, though he didn't quite know it that young.

By age 9 or 10 he was well into "pretended obscene."

"What's long and hard when you put it in, but soft and gooey when you take it out?"

"A stick of gum."

One of my graduate students once did a study of children's use and understanding of "obscene" words (long before institutional review boards made such studies impossible). He asked kids from first through eighth grades what the "worst words" they knew were. Then he asked them for definitions. The list of words was the same, but the definitions changed as the kids grew up. By about sixth grade they had the adult definitions, but the younger kids had very different meanings for the words.

There are collections of such jokes, riddles, and songs in print.

Many non-obscene (or borderline obscene) song parodies are found in A Prairie Home Companion Folk Song Book by Marcia and Jon Pankake. 174 pages of straight-up obscene songs can be found in The Dirty Song Book by Jerry Silverman (New York: S/X Press, 1982) – most of them parodies of songs that are perfectly safe for polite company. Gershon Legman, the great folklorist of the obscene, covered songs in many of his books and articles, though the most recent solid ACADEMIC book that I can find on the subject is "The Whorehouse Bells Were Ringing," by Guy Logsdon (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1989). There have also been a great many academic articles since then scattered across the folklore literature.

The earliest one that I can remember singing that was full-on obscene and NEVER, under any circumstances, to be sung in the presence of adults was one that I learned in summer camp when I was in the seventh grade. It was a version of "The Old Chisholm Trail." The one with the refrain that goes:

Come-a ti yi yipi, yipi ya, yipi ya,

Come-a ti yi yipi, yipi ya.

The summer camp version was called "The Old Jizzum Trail," and had the refrain:

Gonna tie my pecker to a tree, to a tree,

Gonna tie my pecker to a tree.

I can't remember, off the top of my head, any of the verses, but they were definitely appropriate to the refrain.

I'm sure that most of the members here had such jokes/songs/riddles in their childhoods.

Anyone willing to share their memories?

[Uncle Flo (imported)]

I think you are right about girls having their own version of the songs and jokes. I vividly remember a girl sitting on the back steps with my son ( both about ten years old) teaching him jokes and songs that adults were not supposed to hear. All of the "secret" words were taught to me by my good friend, the Methodist Minister's son. --FLO--

[Dave (imported)]

Those jokes reminded me of a very famous song written by Cole Porter in KISS ME KATE.

that was in 1948 just to put a year on it.

Tom, Dick or Harry

words and music by Cole Porter

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=

X96SpVapfaU

Verse

GREMIO:

I've made a haul in all the leading rackets

From which rip-roarin' rich I happen to be,

And if thou wouldst attain the upper brackets,

Marry me, marry me, marry me.

LUCENTIO:

My purse has yet to know a silver lining,

Still lifeless in my wifeless family tree,

But if for love unending thou art pining,

Marry me, marry me, marry me.

HORTENSIO:

I come to thee a thoroughbred patrician

Still spaying my decaying family tree.

To give a social goose to thy position,

Marry me, marry me, marry me.

Marry me!

GREMIO & LUCENTIO:

Marry me!

HORTENSIO:

Marry me!

GREMIO & HORTENSIO:

Marry me!

LUCENTIO:

Marry me!

GREMIO:

Marry me!

3 SUITORS:

Marry me!

BIANCA:

I'm a maid who would marry

And will take with no qualm

Any Tom, Dick or Harry,

Any Harry, Dick or Tom,

I'm a maid mad to marry

And will take double-quick

Any Tom, Dick or Harry,

Any Tom, Harry or Dick.

GREMIO:

I'm the man thou shouldst marry.

BIANCA:

Howdy, Pop!

GREMIO:

Howdy, Mom.

LUCENTIO:

I'm the man thou shouldst marry.

BIANCA:

Art thou Harry, Dick or Tom?

HORTENSIO:

I'm the man thou shouldst marry.

BIANCA:

Howdy, pal!

HORTENSIO:

Howdy, chick!

BIANCA:

Art thou Tom, Dick or Harry?

3 SUITORS:

Call me Tom, Harry or Dick.

BIANCA & SUITORS:

I'm (She's) a maid who would marry

And would no longer tarry,

I'm (She's) a maid who would marry,

May my hopes not miscarry!

I'm (She's) a maid mad to marry

And will take double-quick

BIANCA:

Any Tom, Dick or Harry,

Any Tom, Harry or Dick.

BIANCA & SUITORS:

A dicka dick,

A dicka dick,

A dicka dick,

A dicka dick!

A dicka dick,

A dicka dick,

A dicka dick...

BIANCA:

Any Tom, Dick or Harry,

Any Tom, Harry or Dick!