My Mummy Told Me

DESCRIPTION: "My Mommy told me" she would buy a rubber dolly if I was good. "Don't you tell her," or someone/Auntie told her "I kissed a soldier"; she won't buy me a rubber dolly.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: c.1910 (Opie/Opie-TheSingingGame)
KEYWORDS: courting playparty mother
FOUND IN: Britain(England(South)) Ireland
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Opie/Opie-TheSingingGame 134, "My Mummy Told Me" (2 texts, 1 tune)
Kane-SongsAndSayingsOfAnUlsterChildhood, p. 83, "My mother told me" (1 text)
Roud #17597
RECORDINGS:
Mississippi John Hurt, "Rubber Dolly" (on MJHurt04)
NOTES [108 words]: Andrew Kuntz's Fiddler's Companion site: "According to Bronner (1987), 'Rubber Dolly' was first collected as an Anglo-American children's game with the following words or variants (which may have come from a music-hall song of the 1890's)."
Among the recordings is "My Wubba Dolly" by Ella Fitzgerald (1939, Decca 91839-A) (source: the Ella Fitzgerald site).
Opie/Opie-TheSingingGame: .".. may have been given a boost by Shirley Ellis's pop version [Congress 234, according to the Shirley Ellis discography on the Spectro Pop Express site], 'The Clapping Song', 1965 [which includes the 'Rubber Dolly' verse and 'Three, Six, Nine', among others]." - BS
Last updated in version 6.5
File: OpGa134

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