France, Pants
There’s a classic rhyme:
There’s a place in France
Where the naked ladies dance
There’s a hole in the wall
Where the men can see it all
But I only call it classic because I read it in a book once, and it gets more Google hits than what I consider in my heart of hearts the real version — the version I learned as a boy in The Ward, Upstate New York. It’s sung to a what always struck me as a Mysterious Eastern Melody, which at least one website alleges is called “The Hoochie Kootchy Dance”.
Oh they don’t wear pants
On the other side of France
But they do wear jeans
Just to cover up their beans
Children’s rhymes are fascinatingly mutable. By far the more common version of this variant appears to have “the Southern part of of France” in the second line. Which makes sense climatologically, I suppose, tho I wouldn’t know about culturally.
A second couplet “But they do wear grass / Just to cover up their ass” was known to me and others as well, but considered a bit racy for mixed company. The internet knows of “But they do wear fleece / to protect them from the beast”.
January 21st, 2004 at 6:11 pm
Here’s the version I remember, though I admit it makes not a whit of sense:
There’s a place in France,
Where the ladies don’t wear pants
Just one puff of smoke
Is enough to kill a snake
When the snake is dead
They put roses in his head
When the roses die
They put diamonds in his eyes
When the diamonds break
It is 1978.
January 21st, 2004 at 8:40 pm
Ah, yes, I remember that classic rhyme. I learned the first version as a child in North Carolina.
The accompanying melody is the (dreaded) “snake charmer” song, the bane of belly dancers everywhere. Like many of the stranger aspects of modern life, the tune–supposedly, created by promoter Sol Bloom–came out of the 1893 Columbian Exposition. Shira’s Art of Middle Eastern Dance has the full story, but proceed with caution, there is an automatic MIDI file on this page: <http://www.shira.net/streets-of-cairo.htm>
January 22nd, 2004 at 10:22 am
Llisa, your version makes not a whit of sense! It is gorgeous! I wish anyone reading this would put versions they remember of this song here. It’d be like Iona Opie, only less scientific.
Vernica, thanks so much for the great link!!! Now that I think of it, I can remember cartoons and such with people charming snakes, belly dancing, and doing all manner of other Mysterious Things to the accompaniment of that melody. It’s fascinating to learn more about its history — how can something that totally formed my views of The East be something some guy just cooked up a century ago? The relief of my weighty ignorance is sometimes so painfully gradual that my only consolation is the hope it will be steady… is there maybe some sort of good book about that Columbian Exposition?
January 22nd, 2004 at 4:52 pm
Since I grew up on the cold hard crude streets of Brooklyn, my version was dirty-schmirty:
There’s a place in France
Where all the ladies dance
And [something I can't remember] -/ants/
All the boys pull down their pants
I guess I knew this had something to do with the nasty sex stuff, though since I grew up in the snooty repressed neighborhood of Bay Ridge, I didn’t really understand. Still, I remember this being my first insight into the idea that seeing a member of the opposite sex naked might compel one to take off one’s pants. Although I had no idea how or why that might work out.
Come to think of it, I’m still pretty unclear on the details.
January 23rd, 2004 at 11:42 am
The difference between a educated person and an ignoramus is that the ignoramus just gives up when she doesn’t know something, whereas the really bright bulb fabricates something.
There’s a place in France
Where all the ladies dance
And should their pants host ants
All the boys pull down their pants
That seems reasonable.
January 23rd, 2004 at 3:11 pm
Oh, I could have come up with a million or so filler lines. And I almost did. But, since Desultor seems interested in the purest, most authentic, most scientific form of the rhymes, I decided not to fabricate anything.
Thanks to people like snjoseph, the entirety of human history is clouded with falsehood! Oh, for shame!!
January 24th, 2004 at 6:08 pm
I agree — snjoseph, for shame! We should think considerately of all students — both those who are alive, and those who are yet to live. The latter will no doubt base their history on a democratic collection of information from all available contemporary written and other recorded documents. If properly automated (perhaps in the manner of a more sophisticated search engine of some sort), this sort of information collection could some day eliminate bias in the understanding of history.
By this we can plainly see that fabricating lines to a song (O and especially a children’s folktune — the mother’s milk of our minds; the truest indicator and vector of a people’s inmost spirit) is a very low practice. It is something like befouling a well, except that with the passing of time a foul well may run clean once more. The spirit of our times, once it has been befouled, can never be cleansed again.
Every time we lie, we deal our mutual understanding of the world (our Zeitgeist) a shove away from the path of truth. That hurts us all. And every time we fabricate, we weave strands of falsehood into the tapestry of our future’s common knowledge (our Zukunftszeitgeist). And the future is people, albeit people who have the misfortune not yet to be alive, so leaving them with lies should be morally repugnant to us. Again I say — snjoseph, for shame!
There is, however, evidence (which I will discuss when I have leisure) that snjoseph’s self-confessedly self-fabricated “And should their pants host ants” has at least a thread of truth. This may well prove exculpatory when the future comes to judge him.
January 25th, 2004 at 9:23 pm
I think if the People of the Future research today’s society based on goddamn blogs, they’re either going to a) think so little of us that they don’t put much stock in what we have to say anyhow or b) be so irredeemably stupid that I don’t much care what they think.
March 15th, 2004 at 3:32 am
I have yet another version of this dumb song that I heard from my siblings as a child:
There’s a place in France
Where the naked ladies dance
There’s a hole in the wall
Where the men can see it all
And the men drink beer
While the ladies shake their rear
And the rear that they shake
Is enough to fry a snake
And the snake that they fry
Is enough to tell a lie
And they Lie that they tell
Is enough to burn in Hell (or “go to jail”; or sometimes, when my sister was particularly bored she would change it to an completely different tune that I’ve yet to be able to place and say “Is enough to hello operator, give me number nine, if you disconnect me, I’ll kick you from, behind the ‘frigerator, there was a piece of glass, little Sally slipped and cut her, ask me no more questions, tell me no more lies, the cows are in the pasture, eating chocolate pies”).
Don’t ask- I have no idea.
March 5th, 2006 at 1:34 am
I have a different version to both the tunes that were mentioned in the last post….First…”There’s a place in France where the ladies wear no pants and the men dont care ’cause there in their underwear” and “Miss Susie had a steamboat, the steamboat had a bell, Miss Susie went to heaven the steamboat went to Hello Operator, give me number nine, if you disconnect me, I’ll kick you from behind the ‘fridgerator, there was a piece of glass, Miss Suzie sat upon it and cut her little ask me no more questions and I tell you no more lies, The boys are in the bathroom zipping up the flies are in the meadow the bees are in the park. Miss Susie and her boyfriend are kissing in the dark. The dark is like the movies, the movies’ like the show, the show is like tv and that is all I know know know, I know I know my ma I know I know my pa, I know I know my sister with the 49’rs bra. The bra is for the boobies, the boobies for the milk, the milk is for the babies with diapers made os silk. Miss Susie had a baby, she named him Tiny Tim. She put him in the bathtub, to see if he could swim.
He drank up all the water, and ate the bar of soap. He tried to eat the bathtub,
but it wouldn’t go down his throat. Miss Susie called the doctor, Miss Lucy called the nurse, Miss Susie called the lady with the alligator purse.
“Mumps.” Said the doctor. “Measles.” Said the nurse. “Hiccups.” said the lady with the alligator purse. “prescription.” Said the doctor. “Bed rest.” Said the nurse. “I’m leaving.” Said the lady with the alligator purse.
There is also another one I kind of remember….Slide down my rainbow and through my cellar door and we’ll be jolly friends forever more…I cant remember the rest.
June 18th, 2006 at 10:10 pm
i love u !!!!!!!!
February 2nd, 2007 at 1:19 am
sweet, you people are bringing back my childhood days remembering the lyrics to these old songs, anybody remember singing the wheels on the bus go round and round round and round round and round soo loud and for so long that the bus driver would actually stop the bus until we stopped singing and eventually turned the bus around and took us all back to the principle? lol guess you had to be there! shouldve seen his face when all the kids on the bus where still singing when we pulled up to the principle on the sidewalk, priceless. Detention that weekend was wicked full, and we sang in there too.
June 20th, 2007 at 7:26 pm
Oh, little playmate,
Won’t you come play with me?
And bring your dollies three,
Climb up my apple tree,
Holler down my rain barrel,
Slide down my cellar door,
And we’ll be jolly friends
Forever more.
Oh, little playmate,
I cannot play with you.
My dollies have the flu.
Boo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo!
I have no rain barrel.
I have no cellar door.
But we’ll be jolly friends
Forever more.
(or something like that…)
And I knew this version of the dance in France song:
There’s a place in France
Where the alligators dance,
And the dance they do
Was written by Lou,
But Lou couldn’t dance
So they kicked him in the pants,
And the pants that he wore
Cost a dollar ninety-four….plus tax.
June 24th, 2007 at 1:45 pm
Thank you, Jill, for the neat France version and the interesting clapping game!
July 9th, 2007 at 12:14 am
theres a place on mars
where the women smoke cigars
and the men wear bikinis
and the children drink martinis
every breath they take
is enough to kill a snake
when the snake is dead
they put roses on his head
when the roses die
they put diamonds in his eye
when the diamonds crack
they put mustard on his back
when the mustard fades
theyy call the king of spades
and he says “freeze!”
hahah the only one i know
July 11th, 2007 at 1:03 pm
Hooray! Thank you!
August 18th, 2007 at 12:54 am
There’s a place in France
Where the naked ladies dance
But the men don’t care
Cause they smoke their underwear
The laste verses make little sense but a bunch of my 6 and 7 year old friends sang it back in the 60s.
August 21st, 2007 at 3:47 pm
I guess people smoked worse things in the 60s! Thanks for the verse!
October 8th, 2007 at 11:56 am
I REMEMBER ” Oh they don’t wear pants in the southern part of france, but they do weer them in germany”
That’s all that I and my friends can remember. This was sung by us as kids in the 1930’s. Perhaps it was colder in germany at the time. Just a silly kids’ rhyme.
November 16th, 2007 at 10:15 pm
oh they don’t wear pants
in the southern part of france,
and the dance they do
is enought to kill a jew.
that is all we know about this rhyme
December 20th, 2007 at 8:50 pm
CHINESE,
JAPENESE,
GERMAN KNEES,
LOOK AT THESE!!!!
NOW IF YOU KNOW THE MOTIONS ITS KNIDA FUNNY
December 24th, 2007 at 4:09 pm
We used to sing Miss Suzie (already here by another poster) when I was a kid…We also sang
Miss Mary Mack (mack mack), all dressed in black (black black), with silver buttons (button buttons), all down her back (back back)
She asked her mother (mother mother) for fifty cents (cents cents)
to see the elephants (elephants elephants) jump over the fence (fence fence)
They jumped so high (high high) they touched the sky (sky sky)
they didn’t come back (back back) till the fourth of July (ly ly)
December 29th, 2007 at 1:31 pm
Well, since my father was a minister, my mother changed the verse to
Down in France,
Where they do a hoola dance,
There’s a whole in the wall,
Where the men can see it all.
I guess god doesn’t like men peeping on naked women. lol
January 11th, 2008 at 1:52 pm
Where I grew up in Maryland, the France song was sung as a taunt at someone else:
There’ a place in France,
Where the naked women dance,
There’s a hole in the wall,
Where the men can see it all,
“Oops!” said [insert name],
I dropped my bra.
The rhyme scheme is destroyed unless the name of the girl rhymes with “bra”, so in most circumstances, “bra” is meant to be rhymed with “all”
January 29th, 2008 at 5:46 pm
My daughter is practicing this right now on the piano. She has a music book with this song but it is called, “The Minor Mynah.” She finds the lyrics less than charming. I am taking the mars version in to her to sing instead. I don’t know if her piano teacher will appreciate this, but let’s consider it a service to future generations.
February 15th, 2008 at 3:32 pm
I grew up in suburban Maryland in the 1950s and we would constantly sing chants/songs that we didn’t know the meaning of. I remember particularly “Oh they wear no pants in the Southern Part of France and the dance they do was enough to kill a Jew.” How horrible. Only later did I realize that the first was a reference to the original can-can where the thrill was that when the girls threw up their legs you could see everything. As a catholic schoolgirl I knew about Jews but had never met any and certainly didn’t know what the rhyme was all about. I think late Nigger was substituted. You have to remember this is the pap we were being served and it was a very long time ago.
February 15th, 2008 at 5:37 pm
here’s an extra couplet we had
There’s a place in France
where the naked ladies dance
there’s a hole in the wall
were the men can see it all
the police don’t shoot
’cause they think it’s kind of cute
April 20th, 2008 at 6:09 pm
There’s a place in France
where the naked ladies dance
there’s a hole in the wall
were the guys can see it all
theres a king and a queen with a rubber ding-a-ling
then the kings rubber thing goes BING!
thats the end of the show hoe.
May 26th, 2008 at 2:29 pm
i was surfing trying to find a rhyme that I vaguely remember and came up with this sight.
I remember :
All the girls in France
do the hoochie coochie dance
and the jewels they wear
are like diamonds in their hair,
and the boys can’t dance
cause they have (?) in their pants
and the pants they wore
cost a dollar forty-four
I just can’t remember how we jumped out of the rope and ended the “song”
My version of the song about the “dollies three” had the lines:
climb down my rain spout
into the cellar door
Also does any one remember the clapping song
My momma told me
if I was goodie
that she would buy me
a rubber dolly
my autie told her
i kissed a soldier
now she won’t buy me
a rubber dolly
then we added
3 6 9
the goose drank wine
the monkey chewed tobacco on the streetcar line
the line broke
the monkey got choked
and we all went to heaven in a little row boat
clap pap
thank you for starting this site. It was fun to reminisce.
May 27th, 2008 at 1:51 am
In the early 1960s we used to sing in NOLA…
There’s a place in France where the ladies do a dance
And the dance they do is enough to kill a Jew
And the Jew they kill is enough to take a pill
And the pill they take is enough to fry a snake
And the snake they fry is enough to tell a lie
And the lie they tell is enough to mellow mellow Jax beer.
June 1st, 2008 at 3:48 pm
The absolute historically correct version is definitely “There’s a place in France where the ladies wear no pants and the men dont care ’cause there in their underwear”. At least the version I remember. I’ve been walking around for a couple weeks now singing the first line but I couldn’t remember the second line. My girlfriend wants to kill me. All I have to say now is “France, pants” and she gets all edgy.
June 14th, 2008 at 12:37 am
Wow, this thread went on a long time and it’s still alive! I stumbled across this by chance and I am amazed that no one put the version that I always thought was “correct” as far as I see:
Oh they don’t wear pants
On the other side of France
But the men wear skirts
Just to cover where it hurts
The “other side of France” I figured was North Africa, where they wear or used to wear jalabiyyas.
July 4th, 2008 at 8:47 am
Just found this. How cool. A million years ago the
version I learnt was
All the girls in France
Do the Hoola Hoola dance
And the way they shake
is enough to kill a snake
When the snake is dead
They put roses in his head
When the roses die
They put diamonds in his heart
When the diamonds break
It is 1968
This I learnt on New Year’s eve, a few hours before 1968.
It was a warm up to midnight chant. I was 4 years old, and
we used it on New Year’s for many years following, just
changing the year.
July 5th, 2008 at 12:34 pm
Okay, what’s really buggin me about all this is… what is the name of the tune?
Please, does anybody know?
It’s rather Egyptian, don’t you think?
July 27th, 2008 at 2:06 am
I only remember the first verse (sung 20 years ago in central california):
There’s a place in France
where the naked ladies dance
There’s a whole in the wall
where the men see it all
But the women don’t care
for they wear no underwear
August 9th, 2008 at 1:38 pm
Oh, they don’t wear pants in the southern part of France,
but they do wear grass to cover up their….
Don’t frightened! Don’t be alarmed!
They wear grass to cover up their charms
September 27th, 2008 at 6:34 am
I remember this which the men came back singing during the second world war. OH, their’s a place in the southern part of France where the women wear no pants. OH, how would you like to go swimming with a bunch of naked women in the southern part of France where the women wear no pants and the men go around with their dongs dragging the ground .
September 29th, 2008 at 5:05 pm
I recall a verse to the hoochie cootchie tune:
a bit more suggestive than the ones above
Oh the women wear no pants
in the southern part of France
and the men go around
with their doo dads hangin down
no they don’t wear pants
but they a-ll ha-ve fun!
(Laughter all around)
October 10th, 2008 at 5:24 pm
I BELIEVE THE “NO PANTS IN FRANCE” RELATES TO THE FACT(?) RUMOR(?) THAT THE ORIGINAL “CAN CAN” WAS PERFORMED WITHOUT BENEFIT OF BLOOMERS.
October 13th, 2008 at 4:08 pm
This was one of a few songs my mom always sang to me as her’s did to her (and I to my daughters) during our nightly bath.
Oh, they don’t wear pants
In the hoochie coochie dance
La la la la la la la la
La la la la la la la la
Also my grandpa would put his hands on his head and flex, making his muscles dance while singing this song (to make the kids laugh). The version he sang was the same as above along with:
There a place in France
Where the naked ladies dance
Thre’s a hole in the wall
Where the men can see it all
So glad to get some history of this song and know other people sang it to their kids. My family isn’t as crazy as I once thought now!!!! Thanks everyone!
November 3rd, 2008 at 3:27 pm
I remember it from the early ’50s as:
Oh they don’t wear pants
On the other side of France
But they all wear grass
Just to cover up their ass
When the grass falls down
It’s the greatest show in town
They stand in line
Just to wiggle their behind
I too have always wondered where the tune came from.
November 7th, 2008 at 7:29 pm
Way down in France, where the women wear no pants,
And the men go ’round , with their yo,yo’s hangin’ down!
November 8th, 2008 at 12:27 am
GOOD NEWS: After writing a few days ago on this blog, I have since located the information on the melody used for the “oh they don’t wear pants” song. It is from the 1890s and is called “The Streets Of Cairo” composed by James Thornton. It has informally been referred to as the “snake charmer” song. For the full story on the song, go to this Web site:
http://www.shira.net/streets-of-cairo.htm
November 10th, 2008 at 7:40 pm
“The Streets of Cairo” song is the background music for the new
Delta faucet commercial. After hearing that commercial, “All the girls in France do the hootchie cootchie dance ” song (Philly version) has been in my head and I couldn’t recall the rest of the song until now.
January 12th, 2009 at 1:10 pm
the 1 i used to sing as a kid in the U.K
all the boys in france don’t wear any pants
all the girls in spain drop their knickers down the drain
i cant think of the rest i think germay and italy and a few other places came in to it??
January 13th, 2009 at 4:00 pm
I figured with all the comments someone would remember the rhyme/song the way we sang it on the playground in Alabama when I was growing up in the 60s.
There’s a place in France
Where the women do a dance
And the dance they do was a (short vowel sound)written by a Jew
But the Jew he could dance
So they kicked him in the pants
And the pants he wore cost a dollar ninety-four
Too politically incorrect to sing now. Back then there were jokes and slurs in most every nationality, job choice, sports team, gender, etc. No one seemed to care or take offense. If it was aimed us we usually just came up with one of our own to fling back at them. I think I liked it better then.
January 21st, 2009 at 12:24 pm
In Kentucky, I’ve heard several versions of this. I was actually talking with my brother and his wife about it last night.
In a neighboring county, my sister-in-law sang:
There’s a place in France where the women wear no pants.
And the men walk around with their ding dongs hanging down.
My brother remembers:
There’s a place in France where the women wear no pants.
The men don’t care cause they all wear underwear.
The version I recall is:
There’s a place in France where the women wear no pants.
There’s a hole in the wall where the men can watch it all.
Interesting to see all the versions posted and how different the versions are in our small area alone!
February 23rd, 2009 at 6:11 pm
I remember the song “look down my rain barrel – slide down my cellar door—” being sung by popular crooners on the radio in the 1930’s.
One chant frequently used to tease a miffed playmate was:
“Johnnie’s mad and I’m glad
But I know how to please him
A bottle of ink to make him stink
And a little nigger girl to squeeze him.”
No racial malice intended. We were all innocent then.
February 23rd, 2009 at 6:20 pm
Note on the “Place in France…” song. I grew up in small town Minnesota except for two years age 7 to 9 in Chicago’s near north side and I never heard of the France song until I saw it on this blog. Was it just an East coast thing?
March 11th, 2009 at 10:18 pm
This is a hoot! I saw the faucet commercial and wanted to know the lyrics to that “nasty” song we sang as kids. This is what I remember:
There’s a place in France,
Where the women do a dance,
And the men go around,
Smoking Luckys by the pound.
So, I googled it and found this blog and I’ve gotten a big kick out of it. All I remember is it sounded nasty and we felt naughty singing it. LOL
March 12th, 2009 at 10:37 pm
So random that I found this, I was just singing this song at home and my boyfriend laughed saying that’s not the version he knew so I googled and found this blog.
“There’s a place in France
Where the naked ladies dance
There’s a hole in the wall
Where the boys can see it all
There’s a ten foot genie
With a polka dotted weenie”
April 28th, 2009 at 11:46 am
This is the version I learned in 1968:
There is a place in France
Where the women wear no pants
And the men dance a jig
That would hypnotize a pig
And when the hearse drives by
You shall be the next to die
They roll you up in an old bloody sheet
And throw you down about six feet
The bugs crawl in
The bugs crawl out
The bugs play pinochle
On your snout.
September 17th, 2009 at 12:27 pm
Buzz: You just combined 2 of my favorite songs. The France song, with the tune from the Chicago Columbian Expo & the Dead song- The Dead song I remember is:
Do not laugh when a hearse goes by,
Or you shall be the next to die.
They wrap you up in a clean white sheet
And bury you six feet deep.
The worms crawl in,
The worms crawl out,
The worms play pinochle on your snout!
And I think the Dead song was sung to some famous Danse Macabre.
I sang both in the 60’s- what fun!
October 8th, 2009 at 8:51 pm
Showing some love to this topic “new to this wordpress”. I defiantly agree with it also. If you really think about it than it all makes alot of sense
October 9th, 2009 at 12:53 am
Showing some love to this topic “new to this wordpress”. I defiantly agree with it also. If you really think about it than it all makes alot of sense
October 9th, 2009 at 5:11 am
Showing some love to this topic “new to this wordpress”. I defiantly agree with it also. If you really think about it than it all makes alot of sense
October 9th, 2009 at 9:56 am
Showing some love to this topic “new to this wordpress”. I defiantly agree with it also. If you really think about it than it all makes alot of sense
October 10th, 2009 at 8:47 pm
Susie had a baby
She named him Sonny Jim
She put him in the pee pot
to see if he could swim
He sank down to the bottom
and floated to the top
Susie reached in and pulled
him by his inky dinky parly vous!
October 10th, 2009 at 10:32 pm
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