6
Inka dink
A bottle of ink
The cork fell out
And you stink.
I learned this song in kindergarten in 1945 and sang
it on a recording my mother made at Macy’s to send to my father when he was
overseas in the army.
7
Make shimalaycham
In the old man’s back
And somebody sticks his finger in.
My finger did it.
My finger did it.
This was an action choosing song on 47th
Street in the 1940s. The group of kids
would gather around someone, the IT, and then one person would run his finger
around in the IT’s back making
simulacrums. Then someone from the outer
group would poke him in the back and IT would
have to guess the poking finger, as everyone chanted lines four and five.. If he were correct, then that person became
the IT. If not, the game would go on with the old IT
being poked in each round.
8
Near the broad Atlantic Ocean
With its waves so blue
Stands a noble school in Brooklyn
Glorious to you
Raise your voices
Praise her onwards
Praise her evermore
Hail to thee
Our alma mater
PS 1-6-4.
This was indeed the alma mater sung in assemblies at
Public School 164 on Fourteenth Avenue. It was sung to the same tune as Cornell
University’s song . It went like this: "Far above Cayuga's waters/ There's an awful smell./ Some say it's Cauga's waters// Others say Cornell."
9.
Ich bin an alta buck
Fun Old Kentuck
Un hub kayne luck
Dann setz mir on meyne ferdele
Un hub mir an der drerdele
Yippyi io ka yay!
A sort of a Yiddish song my father taught me It roughly translates as : I am an old
buckeroo from Kentucky and I have no
luck. So I sit on my little horse
and hit myself on the backside, Yipp ky-ay ky-oo. This
may have been once part of some Yiddish comedian’s repertoire in the early days
of the twentieth century. It is a parody
of the songs real cowboys sang out on the prairie when they tended cattle on
what was known a wrench.
10
G’wan home
Ya‘ fadda’s callin‘ ya
Ya’ mudda got stuck
In da vashin’ machine.
Another of my mother’s crazy songs that she loved to
sing to me.
Top ten hits
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