Silly songs

[beetiger]

More on the details of old family movies later, but for now, a childhood song question:

There's a tune which I think sometimes gets called "Arabian Song", the one that usually gets used in cartoons to denote snake charming, with the rhythm "NaNa Naa Naa Naa, NaNa NaNa NaNa Naa". The lyrics I learned for it as a kid started "All the girls in France..." and were rather bizarre.

If you know what I'm talking about, and you have lyrics you sang as a kid, please post them, together with where you grew up. I get the impression that this is one that has had a lot of regional variation, and I am curious.

Comments

snakes

[allessindra.livejournal.com]

All the girls in France

Do the hula-hula dance

And the way they shake

They could kill a poison snake.

When the snake is dead

They put flowers in its head.

When the flowers die

It is 1945.


born 1961, Northern NJ -- but right next to New York City, right by the Lincoln Tunnel. Call it 1966 through 1974 was my grade school years.

Re: snakes

[beetiger.livejournal.com]

Okay, I think you're my closest peer in age/location so far...and by far the closest in lyrics. The weird thing is , of course, that I'm pretty sure I learned this song from my father, not my peers, which would put in more into the early 50s in Long Island.

The way I learned it:

All the girls in France
Do the hula-hula dance
And the way they shake
Is enough to kill a snake
When the snake is dead
They put flowers in their head
When the flowers die
They put diamonds in their eye
When the diamonds break
It's the year of '68.

Strangely, the lyric was for the year after I was born. A future date in my father's version, or something made up for me when I was one which stuck with the family through the years?

Re: snakes

[kibbles.livejournal.com]

I only know the first 4 lines, and I'm Brooklyn, NY, born in 1969.

Nothing about the dead snake, and I also heard the underwear one and the hole in the wall one.

Re: snakes

[genders.livejournal.com]

Yours is closest to the way I remember it, from about 1968 in Brooklyn. I never heard the naked-lady version :)