Ahem, Ahem

DESCRIPTION: "Ahem, ahem, me mother has gone to church, She told me not to play with you because you're in the dirt. It isn't because you're dirty, it isn't because you're clean, It's because you have the whooping cough and eat margarine"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1962 (recited in the Clancy Family before that time)
KEYWORDS: food rejection mother disease separation
FOUND IN:
Roud #19829
RECORDINGS:
David Byrnes, "Shallicky Shallicky Bookey" (Piotr-Archive #1417, recorded 07/16/2025); David Byrnes and Collin Thorn, "Shallicky Shallicky Bookey" (Piotr-Archive #1418, recorded 07/16/2025)
Collin Thorn, "Shallicky Shallicky Bookey" (Piotr-Archive #1411, recorded 07/16/2025)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Little Nellie In Her Tent" (lyrics about being dirty and clean)
cf. "Apple on a Stick" (lyrics about being dirty and clean)
NOTES [81 words]: At least three children's rhymes share the "It isn't because you're dirty, it isn't because you're clean" rhyme. It's hard to be sure they're distinct, but all have distinctive set-ups.
Margarine is considered to have been invented in 1869, as a product for the poor; hence, perhaps, the disapproval expressed in the song. The whooping cough vaccine was invented in the 1930s and became common in the 1940s, so the window for the creation of this song is presumably about 1870-1940. - RBW
Last updated in version 7.2
File: DPio1411

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