Funny Little Songs That My Mother Sang

When we were little our mother who loved to sing, and she sang many funny little songs to us. One of these was Mairzy Doats. She never explained that she was singing mares eat oats, and does eat oats, and little lambs eat ivy. I always thought it was a just a silly bunch of jumbles up crazy words, but I always loved when she sang it.

At first glance the song's refrain, as written on the sheet music, seems to be meaningless:

Mairzy doats and dozy doats and liddle lamzy divey

A kiddley divey too, wouldn't you?

Mairzy doats and dozy doats and liddle lamzy divey

A kiddley divey too, wouldn't you?

However, the lyrics of the bridge provide a clue:

If the words sound queer and funny to your ear, a little bit jumbled and jivey,

Sing "Mares eat oats and does eat oats and little lambs eat ivy."

With this aid, the refrain is quite easily comprehended, and the ear will detect the hidden message of the final line: "A kid'll eat ivy too, wouldn't you?"

The song was written by Milton Drake, Al Hoffman, and Jerry Livingston in 1943. Milton Drake's daughter came home reciting a English nursery rhyme. According to this story, Drake's four-year-old daughter came home singing "Cowzy tweet and sowzy tweet and liddle sharksy doisters." (Cows eat wheat and sows eat wheat and little sharks eat oysters.)

Another song she would sing was one of fractured lyrics. The song was Chattanooga Choo Choo, and she would sing it this way, "Pardon me Roy is that the cat who chewed your new shoe?"

Another of the fractured lyrics songs was Let Me Call You Sweetheart, and she sang it this way, "Let me call you sweetheart I'm in love with your machine, let me hear you whisper that you'll buy some gasoline, keep your headlights burning, and your hands upon the wheel. Let me call you sweetheart, I'm in love with your automobile"

Some of the other songs she sang were endearing to her children, such as Good Night Irene, and My Buddy. She sang them to my sister Irene and my brother Buddy. She had a pretty voice, and it was truly wonderful growing up in a home with a mother who sang.

Then there were the silly ones she learned from a family friend Donald Ebersol. My Mother Bought A Chicken and it wouldn't lay an egg, so she poured hot water up and down its leg, oh the little Chickie squawked, and the little Chickie begged, and the little Chickie laid a hard boiled egg. The other one Donald taught her was, My Mother Bought A Chicken and she thought it was a duck and she threw it on the table with its feet sticking up, then she slammed it on the floor and kicked it out the door and she never bought a chicken for a duck any more. These were sung to the tune of Turkey In The Straw.

I have carried these songs with me my whole life through, these precious silly little songs our mother sang to us, and I hope to pass them on to the next generation.

God sent his Singers upon earth

With songs of sadness and of mirth,

That they might touch the hearts of men,

And bring them back to heaven again.

~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow