Back when I was a "musician," in the early 1980s, I used to do this
schtick between songs. I'd warn the audience about the "secret drug lyrics" in
the beloved children's song -- you guessed it -- "Pop! Goes the Weasel."
In a phony stern voice, in which I tried to sound like a weird cross between
Jack Webb, Paul Harvey and Sonny Bono (from that
weird anti-marijuana movie
they made us watch at Santa Fe Mid High -- I'd recite the lyrics that
threatened our children.
"Around around the mulberry bush" I'd say, usually using air quotes for
those last two words.
"The monkey, meaning the monkey on your back, chased The Weasel, who
apparently is some sort of drug dealer or pimp,
"The monkey thought it all was good fun" Again, dripping
with sarcasm.
Then I'd jab an imaginary hypodermic into my left arm.
"Pop goes the weasel," I'd say, half singing the line.
But wait, there's more!
"A penny for a spool of thread," I'd say, again with the air
quotes, as if I'm explaining drug lingo. Then my voice would turn ominous: "A
penny for a needle,
"That's the way the money goes ..."
Then again the fake jab"
"Pop goes the weasel," with my sing-song voice drifting off as if from some
dope stupor.
Yep, it all was good fun. Fortunately there are no known recordings of me
doing that.
"Pop! Goes the Weasel," probably my favorite song with an exclamation point in
the title, has a long history, documented in a
2022 article
in American Songwriter by Jake Uitti.
1937 sheet music
Pop! Goes the Weasel” is a traditional English-language nursery rhyme
and singing game. It’s become so popular and stood the test of time when
it comes to the enjoyment of young children, that the melody is often
used in Jack-in-the-box toys to this day.
While there are many different versions of the rhyme today, in England,
where the song originated, most understand the basic verse to be:
Half a pound of tuppenny rice,
Half a pound of treacle.
That’s the way the money goes,
Pop! Goes the weasel.
Tuppenny rice? Treacle? Them Brits sure have some weird food. (Uitti
explained, "Tuppenny rice is cheap starch and treacle is a cheap sweetener.
Doesn't make it sound any less disgusting.)
In many early versions the "mulberry bush" was a "cobbler's bench." And,
instead of the "penny for a spool of thread" part, some versions have this
refrain:
Up and down the City Road,
In and out the Eagle,
That’s the way the money goes,
Pop! Goes the weasel.
The Eagle Tavern supposedly was a swinging joint in London that's still around
today. The webpage for The Eagle at the
Know Your London site
even includes an interpretation of the lyrics:
One explanation is that the word ‘weasel’ was slang for a tailor’s iron
and the word ‘pop’ was slang for pawning goods. The lyrics basically
allude to pawning items in order to gain money for alcohol and
loose-living. They date from the 1850s. Another explanation claims that
‘weasel’ refers to a purse made of weasel-skin, which opened and closed
with a snap or ‘pop’. The ‘popping of the weasel’ in the song, therefore,
refers to the opening of the purse, and consequent spending of
money.
That's kind of like my old drug dealer interpretation.
In 1852 there was a dance craze in England. They didn't yet know the Twist or
the Funky Chicken, but all the cool Brits were doing the "Pop! Goes the
Weasel."
In a
Library of Congress Performing Arts Blog blog post in 2016, Sharon McKinley wrote of sheet music from 1856 she
had found. "What I found amusing was that it had exhaustive dance directions
printed on the last page," McKinley wrote.
She also talks about earlier sheet music from 1853, which also had dance
instructions and said "the dance has been `lately introduced at Her Majesty’s
and Nobilities balls' in England ..."
Again from McKinley:
By the time the rhyme and tune arrived on [American] shores, I’m sure the
origin of the text had already been lost. The words developed in various
ways here, as they did back in England. From an English nonsense rhyme
with any number of verses, it turned into an American blackface minstrel
song with equally nonsensical verses. We own a few different arrangements
of this version. Charley Twiggs’s 1855 song includes what seem to be the
“standard” minstrel show verses, with the addition of a few more verses
with topical political overtones.
Uitti's article lists several versions of the lyrics. I like these he found
in autobiographical novel by Laura Ingalls Wilder's autobiographical Pioneer Girl, which Wilder wrote for her daughter in 1930.
All around the cobbler’s bench,
The monkey chased the weasel.
The preacher kissed the cobbler’s wife—
Pop! goes the weasel!
Early recordings are hard to find. Here's an instrumental version by
British-born, French-named American violinist Charles D'Almaine. The
usually reliable
Discogs
dates the record to 1904, though whoever posted it on
Archives.org says it's from 1909. D'Almaine's version includes some nice Irish reels.
Naturally The Three Stooges were fans of the song. In their 1934 short
Punch Drunks, Curley goes wild -- and apparently gets
supernatural strength -- every time he hears the song. Here's the climax of
that exciting Stooge adventure.
Bill Haley & The Comets in 1952 did a rock 'n' roll version of a Weasel variant
called "Stop Beatin' Around the Mulberry Bush" which had been recorded a
couple of decades earlier by Les Brown, Tommy Dorsey and others. It's different words to a different melody (basically the kiddy song "Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush", but close your eyes and you'll see a monkey chasing the weasel:)
The ever-cool Anthony Newley in 1963 performed this swinging version of Weasel,
using the British lyrics, in 1963:
The Beatles recorded this instrumental for the BBC radio show
Pop Go The Beatles in 1963:
In the early '90s, the forgotten white rap group 3rd Base brought "Weasel" into the hip-hop universe. Supposedly the Weasel in this version was 3rd Base's arch rival Vanilla Ice, who was depicted in this video by Henry Rollins:
And finally, Andy Kaufman in the '70s used to lipsych to a record of the song by
something called The Crown Records Studio Group:
Sunday, August 6, 2023 KSFR, Santa Fe, NM Webcasting! 10 p.m. to midnight Sundays Mountain Time Host: Steve Terrell 101.1 FM
Email me during the show! terrell(at)ksfr.org
Here's my playlist :
OPENING THEME: Let It Out (Let it All Hang Out) by The Hombres
Wiener Dog Polka by Polkacide
The Sky Is A Poisonous Garden by Concrete Blonde
Mr. Executioner by Tandoori Knights
Mystery Plane by King Automatic
Snatch It Back And Hold It by Buddy Guy & Junior Wells
On this day in 2008, folksinger
Erik Darling died at the age of 74 after suffering with lymphoma. Those who loved his music
believe he just walked right in and sat right down in Heaven.
And though he died in North Carolina, he lived in Santa Fe during the 90s and early 2000s. Unfortunately, I only got to meet him once, when he came to my office to give me his latest -- and sadly his last -- album, Child Child.
It's likely that most people aware of Darling probably remember him for his
role in a folk-pop group called The Rooftop Singers, who had a huge crossover
hit called "Walk Right In," a cover of a 1929 song by Cannon's Jug Stompers.
Here's the original:
And here's the hit version by The Rooftop Singers. According to The New York Times, this version was "rearranged by Mr. Darling with twin 12-string guitars, played in a pounding, percussive style. The song became a No. 1 hit and created a fad for 12-string guitars." (A "fad" I guess that Roger McGuinn picked up on):
But while technically Darling was a one-hit wonder, Darling had quite a history in the Great Folk Music Scare of the 1950s-early 60s. Before starting The Rooftop Singers, he was a member of two popular folk groups, The Tarriers and, for more than four years, The Weavers, where he took the place of Pete Seeger.
Seeger told The Washington Post that Darling was "tremendously talented musician with a subtle sense of poetry and musicianship. . . . He wasn't loud, he wasn't flashy, but very sensitive."
Though not as well known as The Weavers or even The Rooftop Singers, The Tarriers was an influential little trio. For awhile the group included Alan Arkin -- another celebrity Santa Fe resident -- before his acting career took off.
They recorded a Jamaican folk tune called "The Banana Boat Song" in 1956, the same year that Harry Belafonte released what would become his signature song, "Day-O (The Banana Boat Song)."
Darling and fellow Tarriers said they first heard it done in Washington Square by folk singer Bob Gibson, who had recently heard it during a visit to Jamaica. According to The New York Times, the Tarriers combined it with another Jamaican song called "Hill and Gully Rider" and retitled it "The Banana Boat Song." Darling and pals "watched in amazement as it climbed the pop charts and set off a craze for calypso music, fueled in part by Harry Belafonte's reworked version of their song, `Day-O.'"
Here's The Tarriers version:
And here's The Tarrier's take on "Tom Dooley." Hang down your head, Kingston Trio, The Tarriers did it first:
Darling also recorded several solo records. Here's a salty little song from his 1958 self-titled album
After the Rooftop singers broke up in 1967, Darling drifted in and out of the music biz.
I don't know the precise time Darling was in Santa Fe, but in 1994 he released an album called Border Town at Midnight at Stepbridge Studios (now Kitchen Sink) in Santa Fe with local musicians Sid Hausman and Lynn Lucas. Also playing on this album were bassist Laurianne Fiorentino, fiddler Gretchen Van Houten and drummer Jeff Sussmann.
(Unfortunately I couldn't find any of this album's songs on Youtube or Spotify, so I'll just post the album cover.)
Below is a song Erik did with the Kossoy Sisters in 1997. It's called "The Wagoner's Lad" and contains some lyrics, ("My horses ain't hungry, they won't eat your hay
...") that later appeared in Peter, Paul & Mary's song, "Pretty Mary":
Finally, here's the title cut from the CD Erik Darling gave me 20 years ago. RIP Erik. I wish I'd gotten to know you better.
Sunday, July 30, 2023 KSFR, Santa Fe, NM Webcasting! 10 p.m. to midnight Sundays Mountain Time Host: Steve Terrell 101.1 FM
Email me during the show! terrell(at)ksfr.org
Here's my playlist :
OPENING THEME: Let It Out (Let it All Hang Out) by The Hombres
Mop Mop by Barrence Whitfield & The Savages
Muck Muck by Yochanan
Dark and Swirling World by City of My Death
After Party by Alien Space Kitchen
It Should've Been Me by Ray Charles
Golden Shower Of Hits (Jerks On 45) by Circle Jerks
Sinead on stage at Lollapalooza, July 1995, Denver Photo by
Steve Terrell
I'm still pretty shook about the death of Sinead O'Connor.
As I wrote on social media yesterday, I got to see her in person twice --
once at Lollapalooza 1995 in Denver and ten a few years later when she opened
for The Chieftains at Red Rocks. Both shows fantastic.
I'd like to share a couple of things I've written about the lady back in the
1990s.
Let's start with an excerpt from an old music column published not long after
her infamous final appearance on Saturday Night Live and subsequent experience
being booed off the stage at a star-studded Bob Dylan 30th
Anniversary Concert Celebration in October 1992.
From Terrell’s Tune-up, Santa Fe New Mexican, 10-30-92
O'Connor recently tore up a picture of Pope John Paul II on Saturday Night
Live , causing one of the biggest public backlashes against a rock singer
since John Lennon declared The Beatles bigger than Jesus.
... Public reaction was swift and predictable. Even Madonna got in on the
act, saying O'Comnnor's action was tasteless ...
… But the supreme irony was when O’Connor was booed at the recent Bob Dylan
tribute concert.
Those self-righteous Dylan fans apparently don’t remember their hero
getting booed at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival by prissy folkies who didn’t
like the fact that Dylan had taken up the electric guitar.
Kris Kristofferson showed what he was made of when he comforted O’Connor on
stage.
My question is why didn’t Dylan himself say anything to the crowd?
Did the great one not want to offend his pay-per-view television
audience?
[concerning her Saturday Night Live controversy}] a…one thing you’ve got to
admit, is that O’Connor illustrated the long dormant potential for
excitement in live television.
She illustrated that point better than anyone since Jack Ruby. …
And yes, after reading about Kristofferson coming out on stage to comfort
Sinead, my regard for Kris, which already was tremendous, tripled.
Just a few years later I saw Sinead in person at Lollapalooza 1995 in Denver.
I was there mostlyb for Sonic Youth and Beck, but Sinead's performance was the
biggest surprise for me:
From "No Love Lost for Courtney," Santa Fe New Mexican, 7-30-95
One of the most intriguing aspects of this Lollapalooza traveling rock
festival line-up was that it featured two women who each have been considered
The Wicked Witch of Rock ‘n’ Roll: Courtney Love and Sinead O’Connor. …
You know the attributes of Wicked Witch. Her evil spells cause the morals of
the nation’s youth to decline. Sometimes they lead male rockers to stray. They
cause crops to fail and cattle to die.
The position of Wicked Witch was first assumed by Yoko Ono in the late 1960s,
though I suppose some could argue that the concept had its origins with
Marianne Faith (the naked girl at The Rolling Stones’ drug bust!)
At the beginning of this decade, the witch’s proverbial broom had been passed
to O’Connor.
When her record company wanted to market her sexuality, she angrily shaved her
head – just like one of them Manson girls! She refused to have “The Star
Spangled Banner” played before one of her shows. She tore up a picture of the
pope right there on national TV.
After that, Sinead seemed to play fade away, while a new witch – who was even
more wicked arose – Courtney Love …
[I go on to bash Courtney’s predictable shtick at Lollapalooza before
getting back to Sinead]
… In her long white dress and her newly grown hair, the diminutive singer
looked more like a Celtic goddess than an angry, unsmiling being she once had
been. And she sang as beautifully as she looked.
No, O’Connor hasn’t become Little Mary Sunshine. Some of her rage remains, as
apparent in her rap song that compares her native Ireland with an abused
child. [“Famine” from her then-latest album Universal Mother]
And she’s still got guts. It took courage to do a pretty a capella song for a
crowd more attune with The Jesus Lizard and Sonic Youth. But she pulled it
off. [I can’t swear to this, but that song might have been "Tiny Grief Song,"
which is on Universal Mother.]
In short, a listener felt uplifted after O’Connor’s performance. One can only
hope Courtney caught a couple of O’Connor’s sets [on the tour]. She could
learn a lot
Here is my favorite song that Sinead performed on Lollapalooza that day. This is a more recent version:
Thank YOU, Sinead!
This is a photo of a mural in Dublin I saw a few years ago.
