See, See, My Playmate

DESCRIPTION: "See, see, my playmate Come out and play with me Under the apple tree." Bring your dollies, slide down the drainpipe or my rainbow, into the cellar door. We'll be friends forever more.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1980 (Opie/Opie-TheSingingGame)
KEYWORDS: playparty friend campsong
FOUND IN: Britain(England(North)) US(MW,SW)
REFERENCES (5 citations):
List-SingingAboutIt-FolkSongsInSouthernIndiana, pp. 94-95, "Come Over, Playmate"; pp. 99-101, "My Jolly Paymate"; pp. 105-106, "My Enemy" (3 texts, 3 tunes)
Opie/Opie-TheSingingGame 148, "See, See, My Playmate" (1 text, 1 tune)
Averill-CampSongsFolkSongs, p. 250, 499, 513, "Playmates" (notes only)
LibraryThingCampSongsThread, post 249, "(Playmate, come out and play with me)" (1 text, from user 2wonderY, posted February 10, 2026)
ADDITIONAL: Janet M. Cliff, "On Relationships between Folk Music and Folk Games" in Western Folklore, Vol. LI, No. 2 (Apr 1992 (available online by JSTOR)), p. 136 ("Say, say, oh playmate, come out and play with me") (1 text, 1 tune) [citing Carol Merrill-Mirsky, "Girls' Handclapping Games in Three Los Angeles Schools" in _Yearbook for Traditional Music_ 18 (1986)]
Roud #16805
RECORDINGS:
Kathleen Avins, "Oh Little Enemy" (Piotr-Archive #1496, recorded 08/12/2025)
Judy Cook, "Oh Little Playmate" (Piotr-Archive #398, recorded 12/21/2022)
Heather Pankl, "Oh Little Playmate" (Piotr-Archive #1306, recorded 06/11/2025)
Susan Waters, "My Jolly Enemy" (Fragment: Piotr-Archive #765, recorded 12/21/2023)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "I Don't Want to Play in Your Yard" (theme, lyrics)
ALTERNATE TITLES:
Say, Say, Oh Playmate
NOTES [193 words]: Opie/Opie-TheSingingGame: "The words of this clapping game have not drifted very far from its source, the popular song 'Playmates', words and music by Saxie Dowell, 1940: Play-mate -- come out and play with me..."
Dowell's lyrics begin, "Oh, playmates, come out and play with me, And bring your dollies three. Climb up my apple tree. Look down my rain barrel, slide down my cellar door, And we'll be jolly friends forevermore (source: Rammstein UK site). - BS
I'm also reminded of the song "I Don't Want to Play In Your Yard," reportedly written in 1894 by Philip Wingate (words) and H. W. Petrie (music), according to p. 274 of Spaeth's A History of Popular Music in America.: the fussy singer doesn't want to holler down the rain barrel or climb the apple tree. This connection is also made by List-SingingAboutIt-FolkSongsInSouthernIndiana.
The Susan Waters text in the Piotr-Archive strikes me as a likely rewrite, the only other version of which is the "My Enemy" version in List-SingingAboutIt-FolkSongsInSouthernIndiana. Possibly it should be split off -- but as a single verse, we can't really tell how separate it is. Roud lumps the whole family. - RBW
Last updated in version 7.2
File: OpGa148

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