When Primary Songs Go Awry
Marigold has been singing quite a lot lately and one of the songs she likes is “Rain Is Falling All Around” from the Primary Children’s Songbook. For those of you who don’t know it, it goes like this:
Rain is falling all around
On the treetops on the ground
Rain is falling on my nose
On my head and hands and toes.
You can adjust the verses for whatever weather happens to be present, “sun is shining”, “wind is blowing”, “snow is falling”, and basically sing it the same way every every time. Repetition AND variety, so much fun!
Well, a few weeks ago, the family was in the car and Marigold was singing happily to herself, morphing one song into another, and soon we started to hear a new variation of Rain Is Falling:
Fingers falling all around
On the treetops on the ground
Fingers falling falling falling on the bushes….
At which point DH and I start glancing sideways at each other and suppressing giggles.
To be fair, there’s another song she likes, a snowflake song, that talks about snow falling on the trees and on the bushes, so clearly there’s some crossover there.
Then, this morning, I was working on some bread dough–it’s my 2nd week of my homemade starter, French (well, Utahn) sourdough bread. I was mixing away in my Kitchenaid and Marigold kept asking me about the mixer. Is that the mixer, Mama, is that the mixer? (Yes.) Are you mixing? What are you mixing?
Then she started singing:
Mixers falling all around
On the treetops on the ground
Mixers falling on my nose
On my head and hands and toes.
Such imagery…..
OUCH! Mixers falling on my head???
Comment by Lorian — June 23, 2009 @ 12:37 pm
I’ve come across several of these:
*Someyears ago, someone was talking about making a tribute song to Pres. Lee. Someone spoke up, and said;”We already have one:”
One boy in a Primary once asked to sing the song about “the doggie in the sky”:
Comment by Mike H. — June 23, 2009 @ 12:51 pm
We keep my wife’s Bosch mixer in a cabinet above the ‘fridge, so you have to be REAL careful removing it, or putting it back.
Comment by Mike H. — June 23, 2009 @ 12:57 pm
An oldie but goodie…
“Christ the royal mascot, leans against the phone…”
Comment by Lorian — June 23, 2009 @ 12:57 pm
My husband always thinks that the pioneer children should walk and trip and die. Dark, but still gets a giggle from me.
I have to remind him not to feed our kiddos his demented writings, but let them create new songs themselves.
Comment by miles — June 23, 2009 @ 1:03 pm
Mike H. I have a son named Lee, and he hates that song
I was just released from being the singing leader. As we practiced “daddy’s homecoming” for father’s day. The senior primary children made this up:
i’m so mad when daddy comes home
mad as i can be
stomp my feet and throw a fit
then kick him in the knee
wrap my arms around his neck
squeeze it tight like this
slap his cheeks and give him what?
a great big fist
they loved, loved, loved it and many of them couldn’t stop laughing when we sang the appropriate version in sacrament meeting.
Comment by shannon — June 23, 2009 @ 1:12 pm
I used to sing “Blood at home” to my little brother, which was funny but probably a little too violent…
My grandmother and her friend made one up when they were constantly asked to do the dishes while the adults chatted:
‘We are all enlisted till the dishes are done
Martyrs are we! Martyrs are we!’
Comment by leisurelyviking — June 23, 2009 @ 1:15 pm
You know, when I was a kid and we’d sing “Love One Another”, I thought the words were “…by this Shalmenno” and I always wondered what a shalmenno was.
Comment by Artemis — June 23, 2009 @ 1:17 pm
The mixers falling all around might also explain the fingers falling all around….
Comment by EmilyS — June 23, 2009 @ 1:40 pm
It’s nice to know I wasn’t the only one who wondered what a shalmenno was. So confusing when you’re little…
Comment by Elina — June 23, 2009 @ 1:48 pm
Not a primary song, but a funny play on words nonetheless. My nephew was pretending to be a lifeguard and he kept shouting, “No running, no dying!” I asked him if he meant “diving” and he insisted he meant “dying.” Well, I guess that’s what lifeguards are really supposed to do anyway…
Comment by Barb @ getupandplay — June 23, 2009 @ 2:03 pm
My younger cousin went through a hybrid Amelia Bedelia/ Follow the Prophet phase where she wandered around chanting “dressing the chicken, dressing the chicken, don’t go astray”
Comment by Moniker Challenged — June 23, 2009 @ 2:22 pm
Thanks for the post and comments everyone! I needed a good laugh today and I got one!
Comment by Heather — June 23, 2009 @ 2:43 pm
“Let us all throw hard rocks at each other” - okay, it’s a hymn, but you get it.
“Men are that WE might have joy” - of great import to women, “For He would not that women should pine.”
In the middle of “I stand all Amazed” a friend wasn’t reading carefully, and the last verse became, “..no, no, I will praise and adore at the mercy seat, until at the glorified throne I keel at his feet.” - I still have to stifle giggles when I sing it.
And finally the best one of all–a young man I knew used to mix a lovely primary song into, “Gynecology, I am doing it, my gynecology. . . ” - Family History is no longer the same. . .
Comment by tkangaroo — June 23, 2009 @ 2:49 pm
oh these are great!
I always remember a farmer telling me that when they are spreading their manure in the spring they always sing “Scatter Sunshine” It has stuck with me ever since.
Comment by britt — June 23, 2009 @ 3:00 pm
I always wondered what a “shalmeno” was, too.
Comment by anonymous — June 23, 2009 @ 3:08 pm
Oh my. Scattering Sunshine. That’s hilarious. I’ll be sure to sing that when I finally get out of my condo and into a house with a garden.
Comment by Erin — June 23, 2009 @ 3:24 pm
Umm, I do Family History some, and, well… …I thought my “free lance gyno” crack was sightly outrageous!
Not a Primary song, but “More Holiness Give Me” has a line that cracked up some Missionaries I knew:
As if there wasn’t enough trunkiness.
Enunciation is a problem in LDS music in general, I’ve noticed.
Comment by Mike H. — June 23, 2009 @ 4:08 pm
One time in mutual, we were singing ‘Choose the Right’ as our opening hymn. I’d been playing a certain Star Wars game a lot lately (it focuses a lot on moral choices), and so it was on my mind. With lines like “Choose the right when a choice is placed before you” and “In its light, choose the right” I was doubled over in laughter before the end of the first verse.
I told one of my friends about it, and we now sing an altered version that includes lines about the Force. We’re quiet enough that no one can hear our words, and they just wonder why we’re always laughing.
Comment by Elina — June 23, 2009 @ 4:17 pm
Which hymn is it that sounds like music from poltergeist?
I always wondered about shalmenno too.
A few years ago, kids were singing “I am a child of God”. One sang, “I am a child of God, and so my needs are gray” or something like that, and his brother said, “no, it’s so my knees are gray”.
The other song I liked is when they used to sing Did Jesus Really Live Again. “and of the fish and honeycombes, he did truly eat”,
Comment by Alliegator — June 23, 2009 @ 4:55 pm
I thought it was grey knees, too! My logic at the time was that when you kneel on the carpet for any significant amount of time, your knees get knobbly & grey. Reduced circulation, and all.
Comment by Artemis — June 23, 2009 @ 5:53 pm
Don’t discourage your daughter! Someday, Weird Al Yankovich will retire, and she can take over….
Am I the only one here old enough to remember the pre-1985 hymn book wherein the words to “How Firm A Foundation” still included “you who unto Jesus for refuge have fled”? With the repetitions, we’d all end up singing, “Yoo-hoo unto Jesus” 3 times. I still can’t sing the song without thinking of the “old” lyrics and how funny they were.
Comment by A Paperback Writer — June 23, 2009 @ 6:36 pm
Some kids in our primary used to sing, “Little purple panties turning yellow-gold.”
Comment by Karen — June 23, 2009 @ 6:51 pm
Not so much a mis-lyricized song, but my mom used to tell a story about when she was in her early 20s in England. The chorister in RS was named Hope, and she was 9 months and a bit pregnant. The song, if you haven’t guessed was “We Thank Thee, O God, for a Prophet.”
As they came to the part where it goes “There is Hope smiling brightly before us, and we know that deliverance is nigh,” the entire room dissolved into laughter.
To this day, I can’t sing that song without a smile.
Comment by Matt A — June 23, 2009 @ 6:59 pm
When within the shady wo–oo–dland, Joseph shot the God of Love….
Comment by EmilyS — June 23, 2009 @ 7:00 pm
“How Firm A Foundation”. Ah, the girdle song. Some girdles used to be called foundations, my Mother said.
Comment by Mike H. — June 23, 2009 @ 7:08 pm
One day we were singing in the car, and hear my daughter chiming, “We are all enlisted till the prospector’s here…” To this day, we don’t know from where she pulled that.
You see, myy children have inherited the “Make-Crap-Up-For-Lyrics” gene from their maternal grandfather. I howl with laughter at the Office episode where Jim is trying to get Andy to finish the “kit-kat” jingle cuz I live with that insanity (”break me off a piece of that … football cream”).
Comment by Bull Moose — June 23, 2009 @ 7:28 pm
I used to think that part of “I am a Child of God” went
“teach me all that I’m a stew”
and used to imagine a bunch of kids stirring a giant pot of stew every time we would sing that song! Needless to say I was confused but just went along with it. Finally when I was 12 and in Young Women I remember using the hymnbook to sing the song and finally reading that it actually said “teach me all that I must do.” Doh!
Comment by Lauren — June 23, 2009 @ 7:44 pm
Good thing she doesn’t read fMH or who knows what would be falling all around…
Comment by StillConfused — June 23, 2009 @ 9:19 pm
then there is the Cherry Fruitjuice, Cherry Fruitjuice…( cherish virtue! )
( Dearest Children God is near you…)
Comment by Melissa P. — June 23, 2009 @ 9:31 pm
When I was about 3 or 4, I wondered what the heck a “Round Yon Virgin” was in “Silent Night.” Since my father had lots of art history books, I was quite familiar with Medieval paintings of the Virgin Mary with golden halos around her head. I came to the conclusion that a round yon virgin was Mary with the round halo. I think I was 15 before I actually figured out that the English translation of that song’s first verse is grammatically a nightmare, since it’s not in complete sentences (except for “sleep in heavenly peace”). It’s no wonder I couldn’t make sense of the song at 3, since that verse doesn’t actually make sense.
To this day, however, I always picture Mary with a halo on that verse, so she’s still a round yon virgin to me.
Comment by A Paperback Writer — June 23, 2009 @ 9:45 pm
In my BIL’s family they always giggle at “Put your shoulder to the wheel.” In the “do your duty with a heart full of song,” In his family, doing your duty was when you went #2. So, doing it with a heart full of song always makes me laugh.
Comment by Katie — June 23, 2009 @ 10:00 pm
Count me as one who wondered what a shalmenno was too. And when I sang the ABC song, I always thought I must’ve learned the wrong alphabet - I couldn’t work out which letter was elamanopee.
Comment by Quimby — June 23, 2009 @ 10:04 pm
My ex-BIL would make the crack about “Put your shoulder to the wheel, get run over!”
And in the south of the US, they’ve welded sport & church.
There’s a Hymn (if you could put it as such) “Drop kick me Jesus through the goalpost of life”
Comment by Mike H. — June 23, 2009 @ 10:15 pm
My favorite primary song was dutifully sang by my daughter frequently in her first years of primary, “Jesus wants me for a sunnnnnn beeP to shine for him each day…”
It is only my favorite thanks to her.
Comment by shakti — June 23, 2009 @ 11:14 pm
I know it isn’t a song but when the Sacrament Prayers were said, as a child I couldn’t figure out how come all the young men said prayers “in the name of my son”. I always wondered where their sons were.
Comment by shakti — June 23, 2009 @ 11:16 pm
One of our Bishopric members can’t see very well to read the words of the hymns, so he sort of makes it up as he goes along. He sings loudly whatever he thinks the words are. It cracks the YW up to no end.
Comment by Stephanie — June 24, 2009 @ 12:03 am
Oh my. Did Forrest Gump say something about if you can’t sing good, then sing loud?
I had a Mission companion that would sing hymns, but would sing them so up tempo (and slightly off key) it sounded like a Dean Martin version of that hymn.
Comment by Mike H. — June 24, 2009 @ 12:34 am
One day our son was singing “I’m so glad when daddy comes homem glad as I can be, clap my hands and jump for George,” Followed by an innocent, “Dad, who is George?”
Comment by Gilgamesh — June 24, 2009 @ 1:59 am
The “Scatter Sunshine” reference reminded me of my BYU singles’ ward bishop. He taught us that “scattering sunshine” was done by kissing, and that we should all scatter sunshine as much as possible. He was odd.
Comment by Kew — June 24, 2009 @ 7:26 am
#33 - My son thinks the letters are “Elmo” and “G”
Comment by Emily U — June 24, 2009 @ 8:29 am
#6 That is awesome.
Comment by Anon this time — June 24, 2009 @ 9:00 am
Having a deep loathing for all of the pioneer primary songs, my husband and I taught our girls to sing “Pioneer children sang as the ROCKED and ROCKED and ROCKED”, complete with the throwing of the devil horns. It vastly improves the song, I think .
Comment by Jennifer in GA — June 24, 2009 @ 11:46 am
Hehe. Once at girls’ camp, a girl told me to add “beneath the sheets” to any hymn title and you instantly make it crude and hilarious.
“Come, come ye saints… beneath the sheets.”
I stand all amazed…
Hold to the rod….
As sisters in Zion….
You get the idea.
Comment by Just Someone — June 24, 2009 @ 1:00 pm
Thank you for this funny posting! It sure made my day!:-)
Comment by belledame2 — June 24, 2009 @ 1:45 pm
#44, we used to do that with fortune cookies too.
Comment by Alliegator — June 24, 2009 @ 3:20 pm
Like Just Someone, my friend said in his YM days they would add “in the bathtub” to hymn titles, and came out funny or strange.
Jennifer in GA: Where in Georgia? I served a mission there.
Comment by Mike H. — June 24, 2009 @ 4:12 pm
I always sang ’shalmeno’, too.
My mum is terrible for singing the wrong words to songs. She once sang ’so they sprinkled sawdust in your hair’ for that Carpenters song, and every Christmas she sings ‘Jack Frost banging on the door’ instead of ‘nipping at your nose’. She is a terrible singer, but it’s worth listening to her just for these little gems.
#31 - Have you ever seen ‘The Flint Street Nativity’? It was made in the UK a few years ago now, and address the ’round yon virgin’ issue. One of the ‘kids’ draws a picture of the nativity and includes a fat bloke, claiming it is Round John Burgeon. I liked that.
Comment by Lulu — June 25, 2009 @ 8:35 am
I’m a shallmeno person as well.
re: 28
Me too!! I thought I was the only one who imagined a bubbling cauldron while singing that song!
(I also thought the god had “given me an earthly home, and parents, kind, and deer.” As I’ve grown older, I’ve changed the lyrics even further to “parents, hind, and deer,” to make it even more punny).
(hind is an archaic word for deer, btw)
And while we’re on the subject of adapting Church songs and misunderstanding the lyrics, is there anyone else who, in the song “We Are All Enlisted,” hears the line:
“Stand by our colors; proudly they wave!”
And thinks that the next line should also end with an “-ave” word, of which one always automatically springs to my mind:
“We’re joyfully, joyfully marching to our grave.”
I can never suppress my giggles when we come to that line in the song.
Comment by Derek — June 25, 2009 @ 1:41 pm
Just thought I’d share that we sang “Scatter Sunshine” today…and the image of scattering manure instantly came to mind.
Comment by Phoenix — June 28, 2009 @ 6:51 pm
It isn’t a hymn, but I love to hear my 3 year old sing “Row,row, row your boat”. Most of it is unintelligible until the last word, very clearly pronounced: Life is but a “drink”.
Comment by Kimarie — June 28, 2009 @ 8:58 pm
I remember when my little sister came home from what was Junior Sunday School singing “Sweet is the work, my gosh, my feet!” Sometimes very appropriate, I thought
Comment by Sharon Proctor — July 1, 2009 @ 8:44 am
Derek, I also want to sing we’re joyfully, joyfully marching to our grave!
The other alternative words I want to sing are from “O God the Eternal Father.” The fourth verse should be “And be like man, almost/In his exalted station and die or all was toast,” ’cause LOST doesn’t rhyme with MOST.
Comment by Molly — July 1, 2009 @ 9:40 am
My husband used to think the song was
Bringing in the sheep Bringing in the sheep
we will come rejoicing bringing in the sheep
because of the picture of Christ with a lamb on his shoulders
Comment by Cheryl — July 1, 2009 @ 10:17 am
So, as the oldest of five childern, I put a spin on I am a Child of God for my younger brothers and sisters.
Has given me an earthly home with parents kind and dear… became has given me an earthly home with parents kind of wierd. They loved it! My parents however, were not nearly as impressed.
Comment by RS Pres — July 1, 2009 @ 1:07 pm
Love that #55.
Comment by Stephanie — July 1, 2009 @ 1:24 pm
I used to wonder why we were singing about golden dinner plates in primary.
Comment by Joyce — July 2, 2009 @ 12:38 am
My wife & others were confused about the line in “I Wonder When He Comes Again”:
She thought it meant at the time “no spring’, that spring would never happen again. Oops.
Comment by Mike H. — July 3, 2009 @ 9:04 pm
“Come come ye saints, no toilet paper here.” Classic.
Comment by Allie — July 4, 2009 @ 10:42 am
My daughter espressed her concern to me after singing Book of Mormon Stories by asking why in the world would anyone be SEEKING LIVER TEA!! She thought she was missing out on some great Mormon secret.
(actual line in second verse–”Lamanites met others who were seeking LIBERTY”)
Comment by Deanna S. — July 4, 2009 @ 3:18 pm
“Silent Night” — I thought it was describing the people in the Nativity scene: Round John Virgin, mother and child.
Also, in “Frosty the Snowman,” because they were outside in the meadow (on a sunny day?), I thought “we’ll pretend that he is parched and brown.”
Also, in “Winter Wonderland,” I thought “We’ll perspire as we dream by the fire…” Made sense to me, anyway….
Comment by Susan — July 5, 2009 @ 9:44 pm
#55, my mom saw that somewhere, too. We’ve sung it ever since. She actually immortalized it in a baby annoucement cross stitch when my first child was born. My kids giggle everytime they stop and read it in the girls room. Now that I’m in Primary I have to fight the urge to sing those words. : )
Comment by Julie V. — January 8, 2010 @ 1:10 pm
love at home… the song has alwasy been changed by me, when i was a mom with too many young kids at home:
Just sunbstitute the words “not at home” for every “love at home”
Ex;
Chorus: Not at Home, Not at home, there is beauty all around, when I’m not at home…
versus ex: hate and envy ne’re annoy, when I’m not at home
Comment by joan — July 23, 2010 @ 11:41 am
So funny Joan, I remember that feeling of pure freedom when I would get in the car all alone and drive away from the house to go somewhere. Ahhhh. bless, if even for a minute.
Comment by IdahoG-ma — July 23, 2010 @ 2:26 pm
Lol. That is so cute. Thank you for sharing.
Comment by Emily A. — July 23, 2010 @ 4:37 pm