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

Re:

[krrayn.livejournal.com]

Great Article.

I grew up in the East Bay Area of northern California, and our version is nearly identical to some others already posted here:

There's a place in France
Where the Naked Ladies dance
There's a hole in the wall
Where the men see it all
But the men don't care
'Cause they have no underwear

The dim recesses of memory impress upon me that it was the men who had no underwear, although I never understood why they didn't care.

I find it amusing that the author of the article states the children's version of the Arabian Song is "conservative". I guess he doesn't know about the Naked Ladies version.

Re:

[beetiger.livejournal.com]

I think he means "conservative" as it relates to "conservation"; that is to say, that children's songs seem to stick around generation after generation, long after the tunes have faded from popular music generally.

Nakedness, groos out, and vaguely dirty words have always been popular in the grade-school folk tradition. :)

Link!

[beetiger.livejournal.com]

I actually have that article too...I was saving it to post for after I got more responses from people. That's got stuff that's closer to the version I learned in it. :)