Around 1986, the kid who lived next door to me was going around saying this one:
Davy Crocket had a rocket
put it in his pocket
I assumed he'd made it up - and maybe he had. But he surely wasn't the first kid to come up with that - it probably goes back to 30 years earlier, when the Crocket craze hit. The effects of it were still seen on playgrounds in my day.
Iona Opie noted that the following similar one was current in Worcester in 1935:
Jack the Ripper stole a kipper
hid it in his father's slipper
How many other rhymes like this are going around?
Seems pretty close to this rockabilly classic from a few years after Davy and his coonskin cap:
ReplyDeleteI GOT A ROCKET IN MY POCKET
(McAlpin - Jimmy Logsden)
JIMMY LLOYD (ROULETTE 4062, 1958)
I got a rocket in my pocket and a roll in my walk
So, baby don't fuss me with that North Forty talk
There ain't nothing you can tell me I don't already know
I got a rocket in my pocket and I'm raring to go
A-Let's go some place so we can rock a bit
I got a rocket in my pocket and the fuse is lit
Well, two-in-one's polish and three-in-one's oil
A lot of lid-flipping makes my bad blood boil
I didn't come here to listen, so cut the scene
I got a rocket in my pocket and a roll in my jeans
Let's go some place so we can rock a bit
I got a rocket in my pocket and the fuse is lit
Well, better tune in and get my signal right
Or there'll be no rocking tomorrow night
Ain't nothing you can tell me I don't already know
I got a rocket in my pocket and I'm raring to go
A-let's go some place so we can rock a bit
I got a rocket in my pocket and the fuse is lit
Early 70's East Hartford CT.
ReplyDeleteThis is not Davy Croket. But, Daniel Boone.
We used to sing this. I noticed you did not have one for it.
Some may think it a bit racist.
Daniel Boone was a man,
He was a big man,
But, the bear was bigger,
So he ran like a nigger, up a tree.
the way we learned it was
DeleteDaley Crockett was a big man but the bear was bigger so he ran like a nigger through the woods