This rhyme has gone on for years - Dave Barry writes about hearing it at camp when he was a kid (That would have been, what, the late 1950s?)
Listen my children and you shall hear
of the midnight run of Paul Revere
Out of the bed and onto the floor
fifty yard dash to the bathroom door
Hasten, Jason, get the basin
plop, plop
too late, get the mop.
This particular version was recorded by Sherman in the early 1980s. The last two few lines (starting with "Hasten, Jason") are mentioned by the Knapps (see the book in the sidebar) as having been current in the 1930s, but they don't say whether it was part of a longer rhyme.
Plenty of variations of this go around, but mostly minor ones, from what I've found. I always imagined there must have been a longer version out there. Did you hear a more complete one? Tell me before I write it myself!
New York in the late 1950's, although surely the second line is "of the midnight run of diarrhea (pronounced more or less to rhyme with "hear"?).
ReplyDeleteCome up! Come up! Come up my dinner come up come up. Come up! come up! come up my dinner come up.
ReplyDeleteI'm coming. I'm coming, for my head is hanging low. I hear the voices calling...Hasten Jason get the basin!...woops SLOP get the mop!
My mother sang this to me in the 60s Bronx NY. I'm sure there was more in the beginning but can't recall it all.
Hasten Jason get the basin! Woops slpo get the mop! Too late get a plate. Mmm "Hot Stew!"
DeleteHasten Jason get the basin! Woops slpo get the mop! Too late get a plate. Mmm "Hot Stew!"
DeleteI heard it in the early 1960's in New Jersey. I still remember the version I heard word for word:
ReplyDeleteListen my children and you shall hear
Of the midnight run of diarrhea:*
From the basement to the fifth floor,
A fifty-yard dash to the bathroom door.
Hasten, Jason - go get a basin.
(Raspberry/fart sound)...too late, get a mop.
* pronounced, as a poster noted above, as "di-a-rear"
The first five lines were said using four metrical feet but the last line with three, which, I think, contributes to the humor of the denouement.
I'm from St Louis, Missouri and remember this from the early 60's.
ReplyDelete