Thursday, March 7, 2013

Things I Ponder: She'll Be Coming 'Round the Mountain

She'll be coming 'round the mountain when she comes, (when she comes).
She'll be coming 'round the mountain when she comes, (when she comes).
She'll be coming 'round the mountain, she'll be coming 'round the mountain, She'll be coming 'round the mountain when she comes, (when she comes).

We'll all go out to meet her when she comes, (when she comes).

We'll be having chicken n dumplins when she comes, (when she comes).

She'll be coming 'round the mountain when she comes, (when she comes).
 
The other day I was singing the above old folk song, "She'll Be Coming 'Round the Mountain", to the little boy that I nanny for. You ever sing a song you've known your whole life and then start listening to the words and wondering, "what the heck does that mean, anyway?" That was me.
  1. Why was she driving 6 white horses? Why not brown horses? 3 gray and 3 black? 4speckled, 1 white, and 1 black? etc, etc.
  2. Where'd she come from? Why'd she go round the mountain in the first place?
  3. Who is she? And who are the "WEs"?
  4. Who's gonna make the chicken n dumplins and are they better than mine? ;)
Google and Wikipedia came to my rescue! Hooray... I didn't know that the song was thought to be about Mary Harris "Mother" Jones and her work to promote formation of labor unions in Appalachian coal mining camps. I always wondered who Mother Jones was. That takes care of numbers 2 and 3. I guess I'll never know the answer to number 4....

The best thing that I learned was that there's a Scottish version of this song. I thought it was hilarious and I'll probably be singing it from now on. Poor granny .....
Oh ye cannae shove yer granny off a bus
No ye cannae shove yer granny off a bus
No ye cannae shove yer granny, 'cause she's yer mammy's mammy,
Ye cannae shove yer granny off a bus!
Ye can shove yer other granny off a bus
Oh ye can shove yer other granny off a bus
Oh ye can shove yer other granny, 'cause she's yer daddy's mammy,
Ye can shove yer other granny off a bus!

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