My Hand on My Head (Hand on my Heart, Nicky Nicky Nu)

DESCRIPTION: "With my hands on my head what have we here? This is my brain thinker my (mother/teacher) dear, Brain thinker, brain thinker nicky nacky nocky nu, That's what they taught me when I went to school." Additional (cumulative?) verses involve other body parts
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1988 (Pankake/Pankake-PrairieHomeCompanionFolkSongBook; one poster on mudcat.org thread "'My hand on my head' (children's song)"; claimed to remember it from the 1930s)
KEYWORDS: nonballad campsong cumulative
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland)
REFERENCES (3 citations):
Pankake/Pankake-PrairieHomeCompanionFolkSongBook, pp. 94-96, "My Hand on Myself" (1 text, 1 tune)
BoyScoutSongbook1997, p. 12, "I Points to Mineself" (1 text, 1 tune)
Averill-CampSongsFolkSongs, pp. 285, 316, 516, "Nicky Nicky Nu"/"Brain Boxer" (notes only)
Roud #12775
RECORDINGS:
Chris Miles, "My Hand on Myself" (Piotr-Archive #548, recorded 03/14/2023)
NOTES [102 words]: This seems to be an extremely amorphous song. It may start with head, heart, or other body part; the hand on the heart may be used as a promise that what follows is true, the nonsense vocables are unfixed. I'd hate to have to guess what the original looked like.
Apparently it was common to sing it in a pseudo-German (Yiddish?) accent; so, e.g. BoyScoutSongbook1997.
It seems there was a version by The Wiggles.
It's interesting that camps allow it, given the obvious possibilities for dirty verses. Note that the Boy Scouts, e.g., changes the song to POINTING to one's self rather than touching one's self. - RBW
Last updated in version 6.7
File: ACSF285N

Go to the Ballad Search form
Go to the Ballad Index Song List

Go to the Ballad Index Instructions
Go to the Ballad Index Bibliography or Discography