Pop Goes the Weasel: The Secret Meanings of Nursery Rhymes
Page 18
The origins of the song go back much further than that, however. Some argue that Hokey Cokey is a corruption of the ‘hocus pocus’ beloved of magicians, an expression that derives, in turn, from the words of the Catholic Mass, hoc corpus meum, ‘this is my body’, indicating the conversion of the Communion ‘bread’ into the body of Christ. The Puritans, against anything that could be construed as idolatrous (see Ride a Cock Horse to Banbury Cross), mocked the accompanying words as a kind of magical incantation.
The dance that goes with the song – in which the participants all dance in a ring, putting the relevant limb in and out, and then shaking it about – goes back a fair way too. Similar dances and songs were recorded in Robert Chambers’s Popular Rhymes of Scotland (1826), and other versions have been traced to seventeenth-century minstrels. ‘The Hokey Cokey’ would appear to parody the religious rituals of the Shakers (so named for their jerky movements while engaged in worship), who both danced and sang during their services. But the earliest accurate record, so far, of the song we all know and love is from an account, dated 1857, of two sisters from Canterbury in England, on a trip to Bridgewater, New Hampshire. During their visit they taught the locals a song that went something like this:
I put my right hand in,
I put my right hand out,
I give my hand a shake, shake, shake,
And turn myself about.
Apparently the performance of the song – called ‘Right Elbow In’ and several verses long – was accompanied by ‘appropriate gestures’ and danced with a slow, rhythmic motion. Whether or not an earlier reference will be found, it seems that the origins of ‘The Hokey Cokey’ do not lie in America, as currently claimed; the song was merely exported there.
I Saw Three Ships
I SAW three ships come sailing in,
On Christmas day, on Christmas day;
I saw three ships come sailing in,
On Christmas day in the morning.
And what was in those ships all three,
On Christmas day, on Christmas day?
And what was in those ships all three,
On Christmas day in the morning?
Our Saviour Christ and His lady,
On Christmas day, on Christmas day;
Our Saviour Christ and His lady,
On Christmas day in the morning.
Pray whither sailed those ships all three,
On Christmas day, on Christmas day?
Pray whither sailed those ships all three,
On Christmas day in the morning?
Oh, they sailed into Bethlehem,
On Christmas day, on Christmas day;
Oh, they sailed into Bethlehem,
On Christmas day in the morning.
And all the souls on Earth shall sing,
On Christmas day, on Christmas day;
And all the souls on Earth shall sing,
On Christmas day in the morning.
Then let us all rejoice amen,
On Christmas day, on Christmas day;
Then let us all rejoice amen,
On Christmas day in the morning.
Pedants among you may well be complaining that Bethlehem is nowhere near the sea. This very old song, sung as a Christmas carol, is believed to derive from a twelfth-century story about three ships bringing the relics of the Wise Men to Cologne in Germany. Hence in the song the three ships represent the three Wise Men journeying across the world to see the infant Jesus, while the ships’ passengers are members of the Holy Family. Meanwhile the masts of the three ships – in illustrations of the carol – provide a less than cheery visual echo of the three crosses on Calvary, recalling the death as well as the birth of Jesus (see also Who Killed Cock Robin?).
Further speculation about the symbolism found within the carol has suggested that the ships are indirect references to the Holy Trinity or to I Corinthians 13:13 (King James Bible): ‘And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.’
A wilder theory associates the rhyme with Christopher Columbus – whose expedition to the New World consisted of three small sailing ships, the Niña, the Pinta and the Santa María – on his way to discover the Americas, the enterprise backed by his lady, Queen Isabella of Spain. There is no evidence to connect Columbus’s voyage with the nursery rhyme, but, as usual, that hasn’t stopped some people from perpetuating the myth.
Whatever the intentions of the song’s lyricist, ‘I Saw Three Ships’ had been a popular carol long before its first publication in 1666. Sir Cecil Sharp, a collector of British folksongs and legends, which he gathered together in his work The Bishoprick Garland (1834), discovered several versions of the song that go back many centuries.
Jerusalem
AND did those feet in ancient time
Walk upon England’s mountains green?
And was the holy Lamb of God
On England’s pleasant pastures seen?
And did the Countenance Divine
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here
Among those dark satanic mills?
Bring me my bow of burning gold:
Bring me my arrows of desire:
Bring me my spear: O clouds, unfold!
Bring me my chariot of fire.
I will not cease from mental fight,
Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand:
Till we have built Jerusalem
In England’s green and pleasant land.
Seen as the archetypal English song, many have called for ‘Jerusalem’ to become the new national anthem instead of God Save the Queen. However, that was very far from the intentions of the poem’s author, William Blake (1757-1827). Blake wrote this poem about the English poet John Milton (1608-74); indeed, it appears in the preface to Milton: A Poem (1804). Most famous for his epic poem Paradise Lost, Milton was also a Parliamentarian sympathizer who allied himself to Cromwell’s new republic following the English Civil War. Inspired by the legend of Joseph of Arimathea’s journey to England after the Crucifixion (And did those feet in ancient times / Walk upon England’s mountains green?), he believed that by overthrowing their king, the English had been given the chance to build a new Jerusalem – a representation of heaven on earth.
Inspired by Milton’s revolutionary story, Blake is in turn advocating further rebellion and change in his own time but in a green and pleasant land and not one scarred by factories belching smoke (those dark satanic mills). As a young man, the poet had witnessed with revulsion the development of the first mechanized steam-driven mill, the Albion Flour Mills, in 1786 at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. The giant and noisy mill was so efficient it could have driven all the small windmills out of business had it not burned down only five years later, in 1791, under mysterious circumstances. In his poem, Blake is arguing that England has to reject industrialization and return to more basic Christian values.
But this interpretation – with its vision of heaven on earth – was completely ignored when the poem was included in a collection of patriotic verse, published in an effort to raise public morale when Britain was entrenched in the middle of the First World War. When C. Hubert H. Parry set the poem to music in 1916, ‘Jerusalem’ was immediately seen as defining exactly what Britain was fighting for. With its soldierly devotion to duty (I will not cease from mental fight, / Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand) and stirring melody, it has symbolized English patriotism ever since. Blake must be positively spinning in his grave. (For the biblical origins of chariot of fire, see Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.)
The Miller of Dee
THERE was a jolly miller once, lived on the river Dee;
He worked and sang from morn till night, no lark more blithe than he;
And this the burden of his song forever used to be:
‘I care for nobody, no, not I, if nobody cares for me.’
The reason why he was so blithe, he once did thus unfold:
‘The bread I eat
my hands have earned, I covet no man’s gold;
I do not fear next quarter-day, in debt to none I be;
I care for nobody, no, not I, if nobody cares for me.
‘A coin or two I’ve in my purse, to help a needy friend,
A little I can give the poor and still have some to spend;
Though I may fail, yet I rejoice, another’s good hap to see;
I care for nobody, no, not I, if nobody cares for me.’
So let us his example take and be from malice free,
Let every one his neighbour serve, as served he’d like to be
And merrily push the can about and drink and sing with glee:
‘If nobody cares a doit for us, why not a doit care we.’
A traditional and popular English folksong from Cheshire, ‘The Miller of Dee’ has appeared in various forms, the earliest of which was published in 1716. The Dee runs through Chester, in Cheshire, and it is thought that the mill of the song could have been one of many along the banks of the river near the town.
On the face of it, this song seems to be about self-sufficiency and happiness with your lot (The bread I eat my hands have earned, I covet no man’s gold), embodied by the cheerful miller, who is presented as an inspiring example to all. However, a darker element can be discerned in the refrain: I care for nobody, no, not I, if nobody cares for me. The miller, ready to help a needy friend and give to the poor, appears otherwise to be driven purely by self-interest, detached from the community around him. Reaching the final verse, it seems that his example is actually only meant to inspire you to get drunk and ignore everyone who disagrees with you: If nobody cares a doit for us, why not a doit care we. And we all know what that is like, don’t we!
Later versions of the song have tried to edit out this disturbing ambiguity, crafting the words into a much clearer moral message. Here the Scottish poet and songwriter Charles Mackay (1814-89) has removed all mention of money and alcohol and turned the song into a dialogue between the exemplary miller and an admiring King Hal (Henry VIII):
There dwelt a miller hale and bold
Beside the river Dee;
He worked and sang from morn till night,
No lark more blithe than he;
And this the burden of his song
Forever used to be, –
‘I envy nobody; no, not I,
And nobody envies me!’
‘Thou’rt wrong, my friend!’ said good King Hal;
‘Thou’rt wrong as wrong can be;
For could my heart be light as thine,
I’d gladly change with thee.
And tell me now, what makes thee sing,
With voice so loud and free,
While I am sad, though I’m the king,
Beside the river Dee.’
The miller smiled and doffed his cap:
‘I earn my bread,’ quoth he;
‘I love my wife, I love my friend,
I love my children three;
I owe no penny I cannot pay;
I thank the river Dee,
That turns the mill that grinds the corn,
To feed my babes and me.’
‘Good friend,’ said Hal, and sighed the while,
‘Farewell! and happy be;
But say no more, if thou’dst be true,
That no one envies thee.
Thy mealy cap is worth my crown,
Thy mill my kingdom’s fee;
Such men as thou are England’s boast,
O miller of the Dee!’
The Skye Boat Song
SPEED, bonnie boat, like a bird on the wing,
Onward! the sailors cry;
Carry the bairn that’s born to be king,
Over the sea to Skye.
Loud the winds howl, loud the waves roar,
Thunderclaps rend the air;
Baffled, our foes stand by the shore;
Follow, they will not dare.
Though the waves leap, soft shall ye sleep,
Ocean’s a royal bed;
Rocked in the deep, Flora will keep
Watch by your weary head.
Many’s the bairn fought on that day,
Well the claymore could wield;
When the night came, silently lay
Dead in Culloden’s field.
Burned are their homes, exile and death
Scatter the loyal men;
Yet e’er the sword cool in the sheath,
Charlie will come again.
This moving song tells the tale of one of the famous stories of Scottish history, the escape of Bonnie Prince Charlie (the bairn that’s born to be king) from the Duke of Cumberland’s redcoats after the Battle of Culloden in 1746. The battle was a complete disaster for the Scots, and a large part of the responsibility rested with Charles’s wrong-headed decisions on the battlefield (see The Lion and the Unicorn). Fleeing from the scene, Charles concluded that he had been betrayed and promptly abandoned the Jacobite cause, desperate to save his own skin. Despite a £30,000 reward for his capture, the Young Pretender survived for five months on the run in Scotland, protected and housed by his many supporters, at great personal risk to themselves.
The song tells the dramatic if humiliating story of the final stage of his escape from Scotland, disguised as a ‘lady’s maid’ and posing as Betty Burke, maid to 24-year-old Flora MacDonald, who was later imprisoned in the Tower of London for her part in his escape. Charles returned to Italy the following year where he lived in Rome, drinking heavily and fathering numerous illegitimate children, until his death in 1788. (For the less glamorous side of the Jacobite rebellion, see Elsie Marley.)
Many have assumed that the song is a traditional Scottish one, and the tune is an ancient Gaelic rowing song, but in fact the lyrics were written in 1884, by Sir Harold Boulton (1859-1935), although the melody could be based on a traditional one. The song was part of the Victorian obsession with the more picturesque moments in Scottish history, as spearheaded by Sir Walter Scott. An obvious clue to this is contained in its airbrushing of the less heroic parts of the escape: the fact that Charlie was desperately saving his own skin, leaving his men and everyone who had helped shelter him to be butchered, not to mention the ignominy of sneaking away dressed as a girl.
The Star-Spangled Banner
OH, say can you see, by the dawn’s early light,
What so proudly we hailed, at the twilight’s last gleaming,
Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous fight,
O’er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
Oh, say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
This is the national anthem of the self-styled greatest nation on the planet and one of the better-known tunes in the world, the lyrics bursting with national pride and staunch heroism in the face of danger. Which is why it will please my Irish friends in Chicago no end when they find out that ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ started out as a drinking song in eighteenth-century London. That should warm up a few baseball games down at the Hidden Shamrock, now that they know that.
The Anacreontic Society was a gentlemen’s club formed in London during the mid 1700s, by a group of amateur musicians attempting to promote their craft – in honour of the Greek poet Anacreon (570-485 bc). The membership was known for its ‘wit, harmony and love of wine’. The president of the Anacreontic Society, Ralph Tomlinson (1744-78), wrote the words to a drinking song that he called ‘The Anacreontic Song’ and which was soon adopted as the society’s official anthem. The first verse goes like this:
To Anacreon in heaven where he sat in full glee,
A few sons of harmony sent in a petition,
That he their inspirer and patron would be;
When this answer arrived from the jolly old Grecian:,
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br /> ‘Voice, fiddle and flute, no longer be mute,
I’ll lend you my name and inspire you to boot.
And besides, I’ll instruct you like me to entwine
The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus’ wine.’
And so on it went for five more verses, each one encouraging the members to drink more heartily. The following year, a teenage composer and organist called John Stafford Smith (1750-1836) wrote the tune (now known as ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’) to fit Tomlinson’s words and the popular song was first published in 1778. The raucous lyrics and memorable tune were soon well known throughout both England and America, with various tweaks to the words, especially in America where the resulting composition was used as a patriotic song under the titles ‘Jefferson and Liberty’ or ‘Adams and Liberty’.
Over forty years later, on the night of 12 September 1814, an American attorney and poet, Francis Scott Key (1779-1843), was held prisoner on a British ship during the Battle of Baltimore. All night, British forces bombarded the town as one thousand committed Americans put up a stout defence despite their low numbers, and the following morning (by the dawn’s early light) Scott was amazed and inspired to see the American flag still fluttering over Fort McHenry. With that, he sat down and rewrote ‘The Anacreontic Song’ with the words now associated with ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’.
On 27 July 1889, the Secretary of the US Navy ordered that the song should be played every time the American flag was raised on any ship, and in 1916, as America entered the First World War, President Woodrow Wilson insisted the tune be heard at every military occasion. This soon extended to sporting occasions – within a few years, the baseball World Series was playing the song before every match. Then, on 3 March 1931, President Herbert Hoover passed a law adopting ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ as the official national anthem of America. And, with that, a London drinking song had completed its chequered journey from dockside pub to the White House.