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When I was in elementary school my best friends and I sang it this way

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We also had a much longer version that we kind of made up as we went. I'm not sure if we heard it somewhere, but one day on the playground we just kept adding our own versus to it. I was only 7 or 8 but it's memorable non-the-less. Each time we got to the third line in the verse we'd act out the words, for example the Wah Wah for the baby we rubbed our eyes and so on and so forth. It's a fun little song to learn when you're young! It's also a good way to kill time.

Or (alternate ending)

Miss Lucy is the devil, the devil, the devil
Miss Lucy is the devil, and this is how it goes!
Wah Wah! Gimme a sucker! Tie my shoe! Ooh-Ah, where's my bra? Left it in my boyfriends car! *Dun-dun-da da Dun-dun-da da!* Shh! Baby sleeping! Would you like a cookie? Rest in Peace! MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! [unsigned]

[Formatted above for legibility]. This actually is a version of "Miss Lucy had a baby" and not "Miss Susie had a steamboat". — LlywelynII 13:35, 12 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

miss lucy had a baby

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When I was a child we would always sing this version of the song every day on the bus.

Miss lucy had a baby
his name was tiny tim
she put him in the bathtub
to see if he could swim
he drank up all the water
he ate up all the soap
and then when he was finnished
he had bubbles in his throat
miss lucy called the doctor
the doctor called the nurse
the nurse called the lady
with the aligator purse

The song was much longer than this but i think adding the other verses isnt necessary. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.240.55.173 (talk) 20:19, 11 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the note!
This is a different song – see here “Miss Lucy Had a Baby” – and was specifically a skipping-rope rhyme (the doctor, nurse, and lady corresponding to kids jumping in and out of the ropes), and is discussed at Skipping-rope rhyme: Rhymes from the 1940s (specifically this page version). It’s unrelated (other than “Lucy”), but other people have confused them (Chants, Clapping Games, and Jump Rope Rhymes: Mary had a rowboat/Miss Suzie/Miss Molly had a steamboat..., Uncle Buck).—Nils von Barth (nbarth) (talk) 13:38, 28 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
You're overthinking it. This song started out as a jump-rope song as well and morphed into a hand game around the '60s. Kids be very serious about differentiating things; they can also mix and match when it suits them. — LlywelynII 03:11, 13 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Music used in Something You Can Do with Your Finger

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What are the chords for the song used in Something You Can Do with Your Finger? Or any other accompaniment for this song?

Family verse

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Across several states in the Western US, I've always heard the "family" verse this way:

I know I know my mother / I know I know my pa / I know I know my sister / With the forty-acre ...

The version currently on the site seems strange, as "I know my father too" doesn't rhyme with the 4th line of the stanza. The majority of the stanzas have an ABAB rhyme scheme, and I believe this warrants changing the line as a fix rather than an alternate verse. [unsigned]

I also have my doubts about the historicity of "80 meter bra", specifically the use of metric measure in a traditional English rhyme. Changing it to forty-acre... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.207.12.64 (talk) 19:06, 15 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Another verse

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The way I heard the line after "Miss Susie and her boyfriend are kissing in the dark" was "dark dark darker than the ocean, darker than the sea, darker than that black boy chasing after me." Censorship? 76.232.206.206 (talk) 08:19, 25 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

lol--76.217.89.73 (talk) 02:10, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Cleanup

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So yeah, I'm going to clean up this page according to WP:LYRICS. As it stands, this article is far from encyclopedic. -Verdatum (talk) 20:54, 4 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I just had to do this again. Probably will be an ongoing project. — LlywelynII 14:58, 12 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

What exact tune is this song sung to?

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I can play the tune, and I know that the notes are. Does the song actually have a name? From whence did the tune come? JD (talk) 04:55, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think it came from the Miss Lucy Long song. It was a popular minstrel song in the late 1850s. Tetris11 22:22, 19 October 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.44.48.149 (talk) [reply]
Are we sure that the music posted is accurate? My recollection is that the first line ends on the dominant (should go G-G#-A-B) then the second line has B's on top instead of C's but ends as written. Drewbo19 (talk) 17:01, 10 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I'm pretty sure the second bar should be different when played for the first time than when played for the second time (as in alternating between verses). Albeit, I don't know this specific tune, but the basic composition principles would definitely favour what the above poster wrote. 82.26.27.141 (talk) 12:00, 12 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
It certainly doesn't seem similar to any Lucy Long version I can find online. Link or source?
It usually follows something close to "Good Night Ladies", the "Merry-Go-Round Broke Down", or the "Bang Bang Lulu" versions that don't follow "Roll in My Sweet Baby's Arms". — LlywelynII 04:06, 13 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Horntip said it sounded like "Steamboat Bill", but (while you could use that tune) it doesn't sound the same to me. [Edit: later on he calls another one set to the tune of "Bell Bottom Trousers". That seems much closer.] — LlywelynII 18:08, 14 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hell

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When I was at school, in elementary school, B.B. Harris Elementary in Duluth Georgia, the girls on the bus sang this song (or a variation thereof) every single day both to and from school. They sat facing each other across the aisles. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.104.190.237 (talk) 01:29, 13 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This has what to do with anything? Alexandermoir (talk) 02:05, 24 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Regional?

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I grew up with version 5 (Okemos, MI, USA). Most of the people I meet are from MI, and know version 1, although it ends after the "D-A-R-K" line.

I wonder: Is there a project to collect data on who knows what version, so we can see what the geographic trends are? Gnebulon (talk) 23:58, 21 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don’t know of such a project, but you might check with the National Children's Folksong Repository, which is at least collecting many such songs, with years and locations. Presumably this or similar projects could (with enough categorizing and data crunching) provide data on geographical trends. —Nils von Barth (nbarth) (talk) 13:20, 28 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
BTW, to put in my 2¢ (or dime, should I say):
In the mid 1980s in the Detroit Metro Area of Michigan (Oakland County), I heard the “glass / lies / dyed hair (pink, purple, polka dot) / sink / ocean, sea, toilet / please don’t pee on me (or “and that’s the end of me”)” version.
Anecdotes have no place in the article though, and I don’t know that the references have enough detail for us to give more specifics in the article on regional variation, though if anyone does a study on this, it would be worth including. —Nils von Barth (nbarth) (talk) 13:45, 28 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Origin – 1950s?

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It would be interesting to know how far back this rhyme dates; the references go back to the 1950s (United States), and due to “Hell / -o (operator)” being the key part of the beginning rhyme (and “… nine / …dime” explaining the presence of “nine”), I’d guess it starts from there: public phones cost a dime approximately in the 1950s, and “nickle” doesn’t rhyme much (certainly not with “nine”). However, I’ll refrain from stating “it originated in the 1950s in the US”, as the references don’t appear to draw this conclusion, though I’ll note it here.—Nils von Barth (nbarth) (talk) 13:41, 28 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm aware of a simular concept but diffrent words rhym called the Chinese verse dating from the 1930s in the United Kingdom. Sadly the lyrics are not of a politicaly correct nature for Wikipedia. I'm not aware of any documentation regarding this it was simply word of mouth from my Grandmother. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.195.48.241 (talk) 08:36, 10 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia isn't censored. It just needs to be notable.
Edit: Found something like the one the editor above is probably talking about. It's not actually this song: it's another version of "Miss Lucy had a baby":
The Sunny Jim thing is apparently from an old breakfast cereal (?!) Wonder if it was advertizing using this tune? — LlywelynII 15:06, 12 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Sunny Jim was from Force (breakfast cereal) "High over the fence leaps Sunny Jim, Force is the food that strengthens him!" All the best: Rich Farmbrough 18:06, 3 December 2020 (UTC).[reply]
In fact, the references explicitly said it was from before 1925 (the Josepha one here and at "Miss Lucy had a baby"). The earlier editors just weren't paying attention. — LlywelynII 15:06, 12 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Other “Lucy”s?

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It’s interesting to speculate as to whether this has been influenced by or is connected to other uses of “Lucy” or “Susie” or the like. My guess is not.

  • A poster above relates this to the song “Miss Lucy Long” (from the 19th century), with which I’m not familiar.
  • There’s the “Miss Lucy had a baby”, which is a separate skip-rope song (noted above).
  • When searching on “Lucy” and “steamboat”, one gets the Lucy Walker steamboat disaster (1844) which one might connect with (“Miss Lucy had a steamboat, the steamboat had a bell, Miss Susie went to heaven, the steamboat went to Hell-”), though it appears earlier versions had “Hellen” instead, and the rhyme appears to have developed a century after this disaster, and it presumably used “steamboat” for other reasons (cadence, bell, tendency of boilers to blow up).

So I don’t know that any of these are originally related – names specifically are very unstable – but people may have confused them at various points.—Nils von Barth (nbarth) (talk) 13:41, 28 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

My guess is it certainly was related to "Miss Lucy had a baby", which has the same tune and the same basic lead-in and seems to be older (see above). Based on the version here, it seems to be based on "Bang bang Rosie" (see also here). Still can't say that til we have a WP:RS though.
Probably not related to the Lucy Walker, since it was owned by a Cherokee man and not a girl named Lucy and since the early versions of the song use the name Mary (and probably Lulu). "Hellen" was much later and just a source's semiliterate transcription of "Helen". — LlywelynII 02:25, 13 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Miss Suzie had a Steamboat

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Every time I've heard this rhyme it opens: "Miss Suzie had a steamboat / This steamboat had a bell / The belle (french for a woman) it (maybe 'she' intead of 'it' sometimes) went to heaven / The steamboat went to... / Hello operator..." Yet this opening (using the play on words of bell/belle in French and English) isn't represented once in all of the 11 versions shown, this is egregiously incorrect. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.63.2.246 (talk) 02:23, 4 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It's not egregiously incorrect, although it does make more sense than the current versions and may preserve an older tradition. We can't include WP:OR but if you wanted to talk to a folklorist or have one cite you, you need to provide date and location information. — LlywelynII 02:27, 13 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Explaining the verses

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What does dark mean? Was it used as profanity? Or is it the "Ark" moaning sound?

Is there a meaning to "number nine" or nineif or 'eye niffy'? פשוט pashute ♫ (talk) 15:24, 24 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Can't help you too much there, but the OED ("fly, n. 2") helpfully explains that—pace sources like this one who want to date the "fly" section from the invention of zippers—the "fly" was originally the stretch of fabric covering the trouser hole and dates to at least the early 19th century. Further back, it referred to imps and lesser demons ("fly, n. 1") , which might be how it started showing up as a 'dirty word' in songs like this. (Probably not: the OED has a source in 1952 complaining about the prudes who think that saying button one's fly is offensive.) — LlywelynII 02:58, 13 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Re: "dark", Mudcat (below) has this
So it may have started out as one of the versions of this song where you finally do curse at the end, only to have kids omit (or not get told that) but keeping the rhyme. You see a lot of the versions around the 80s start to use words that don't really follow the pattern any more: the King Arthur stanzas act like "round" should be a curse. Other times you see the kids forget a word is bad: the sister's bra should turn into braaather... but usually doesn't. — LlywelynII 04:23, 14 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Miss Lulu had a steamboat

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In <ref>Bronner, Simon. American Children’s Folklore, p. 61. August House (Little Rock), 1988. Accessed 12 Jan 2014.</ref> this is song #24:

Almost identical version here, as well, by another folklorist. It may not be the original—see above for British versions concerning "Chinamen"'s flies—but it's certainly its own variant. I can't include it at the moment, though, since the source information is on page 241 and Google Books is consistently blocking that page. If anyone can get through to it or find a hard copy at their library, kindly include it with the others and the ref note above. — LlywelynII 02:32, 13 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

When Maxie had a baby...

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I took her out of this article since this was apparently the only place on the internet that even mentioned her. If you can document the supposed English schoolyard rhyme, feel free to include her with the alternate names, but kindly don't restore a mention until then. — LlywelynII 11:28, 13 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Additional sources

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Although not so WP:RS, it's probably worth collecting for the people who will stop by:

Some of them tie it into "Mary had a little lamb":

 — LlywelynII 04:17, 14 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

 — LlywelynII 07:14, 14 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

  • TV Tropes mentions La jeune fille du métro in French and Pican los mosquitos in Spanish as some foreign versions of this.

 — LlywelynII 18:21, 14 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Fulton had a steamboat

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Regarding the wiseacre who replaced mention that Fulton invented the steamboat, Google Ngrams and popular culture would like to have a word. Just because some French and British conspiracy theorists believe some people with more money than sense put an engine on a boat didn't make them viable inventions. (More seriously, he didn't "introduce it to the U.S.A." either... but his cultural influence was far more important than the sumpsimus "first commercially-successful application of steam power to water-borne transport" would imply.) — LlywelynII 04:28, 14 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding mass blanking of content

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WP:RS is a beautiful thing but this is absolutely an WP:IAR (in the name of quality content) situation. Does the editor really believe that the cited and verifiable sources are lying about their childhoods or locations? Did he notice that he blanked a scholarly paper and left a blog post? Does he not realize that any source for this material is ultimately down to trusting the people who are providing the folklorists with their stories?

We should definitely limit the list of versions to eight or fewer; it's certainly arguable that it'd be a valid or improved compromise to create a new "Miss Susie" wing over at Wikisource and just link over to the repository. There is absolutely no one well-served by blanking everything in the last six decades and (pace the rules) there is no well-founded reason to do so. — LlywelynII 04:08, 1 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Yet Another Version

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This is the version that circulated in my elementary school in the Pittsburgh area in the early 1970's:

Charlie had a steamboat, Steamboat had a bell. Charlie went to heaven, Steamboat went to...

Hello Operator, Give me number nine. If they do not answer, Please give me back my dime.

Two old ladies, Sitting in a ditch. One said to the other, "You dirty son of a..."

Beech-Nut chewing gum, Seven cents a pack. If you do not like it, Please ram it up your..

"Ask me no more questions, "Tell me no more lies." That's what Charlie said, The day before he died. — Preceding unsigned comment added by GnatFriend (talk • contribs) 21:46, 2 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Miss susie

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Full house put miss Susie in there tv show fuller house 71.66.254.245 (talk) 16:07, 25 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Influence

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Lana Del Rey's song 'Lolita' may contain an allusion to this song. "Kiss me in the D-A-R-K dark tonight..." and "No more skipping rope, skipping heart beats with the boys downtown." 2600:1011:B00B:E90F:89B:2733:D38A:3CC8 (talk) 19:52, 19 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

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