TEXTUAL ANALYSIS OF "DOWN DOWN BABY"- The movie "Big" Version
"Text Analysis" is an ongoing Cocojams.com series that provides text analysis of selected playground rhymes, and other songs from oral traditions.
This "Text Analysis" page focuses on the African American children's game song "Down Down Baby" as chanted in the 1988 American movie "Big"
-Ms. Azizi Powell (cocojams.com founder/editor; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania)
last revision 1/15/2010
"DOWN DOWN BABY" (from the movie "Big") *
The space goes down, down, baby, down, down the roller coasters
sweet, sweet baby, sweet, sweet, don't let me go
Shimmy shimmy cocoa pop, shimmy shimmy rock
Shimmy shimmy cocoa pop, shimmy shimmy rock
I met a girlfriend, a triscuit
She said a triscuit, a biscuit
Ice cream, soda pop, vanilla on the top
Ooh, Shalita, walkin' down the street
Ten Times a week
I read it, I said it,
I stole my momma's credit,
I'm cool, I'm hot
Sock me in the stomach three more times
- transcription, Cocojams editor October 17, 2009 from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9z2hJwJuqg “Tom Hanks does the 'Big' rap - Friday Night with Jonathan Ross - BBC One; May 2009 [See this video below]
* Visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big for information about the movie "Big" starring Tom Hanks.
**
Many examples of children's rhymes include folk etymology words and phrases. "Folk etymology words & phrases" are words/phrases that are used in place of less familiar words, or are the result of misremembering or mishearing words. In addition, many examples of children's rhymes are created by combining lines or verses from other rhymes. I believe that the version of "Down Down Baby" from the movie "Big" is an excellant example of both of these statements.
The African American children's rhymes which usually contain verses or lines that are found in that version of "Down Down Baby" are:
1, Shimmy Shimmy Co Co Pa
2. I'll Be (also know as "Ah Beep Beep")
3. Ah Biscuit (including rhymes such as "Doemenique Doemenique" and "Ronald McDonald Had A Biscuit")
4. Ice Cream (with a cherry on top)
Examples of those lines & rhymes as well as a discussion of their connections to the movie "Big" version of "Down Down Baby" are found below:
"The Space Goes" (The spades go)
One of the viewers of the video which is reposted above, bhackett777, wrote that "i think its spades (black men) in the movie "Big". I believe that bhackett777 is right about this. The implication is that during his television interview (given decades after the movie "Big") the actor Tom Hanks changed the phrase from "the spades go" to "the space goes" because the word "spades" has become politically incorrect in contemporary society.
"The space goes" is an introductory phrase that is found in several children's recreational rhymes. I believe that the original meaning of "The spades go" was "The Blacks go". Because of folk etymology, "The spades go" is often given as "The space goes". It appears that the original meaning of "The spades go" has been forgotten, Nowadays this phrase (as well as "the space goes") has no meaning.
"Spades" is a colloquial, and often derogatory referent for Black people (African Americans).* I believe that both of "The spades go" means that the rhyme is being recited or performed the way that Black people did it. By extension, "the space goes" can be said to have had the same meaning. However, I believe that nowadays, these lines are recited by rote memory and have no literal meaning.
Probably the most common use of the phrase "the spades go" in a children's rhyme is this rhyme:
TWO LIPS
The spades go two lips together
Tie them forever
Bring back my love to me.
What is the meaning of this?
For all the fellows I've kissed
They tell the story
the story of l-o-v-e.
-Various Souces, including http://www.mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=81350#1921649
The words "two lips" is sometimes given as "tulips". It may be that "tulips" was the orginal word that was used for this rhyme since it' makes more sense to tie two tulips together than to tie to lips together. :o) Perhaps two tulip flowers were used in a potion to help bring back a lover's affection. It appears to me that is what this line is referring to.
**
See this example of a children's handclap rhyme that includes the line "the space goes":
APPLES ON A STICK (Version #3)
The space goes
apple on a stick just makes me sick make my tummy go 2 4 6
not because im hunrgy
not because im clean
just because i kiss a boy behind the magazine
hey girls lets have some fun
here comes (name) with his pant undone
he can wiggle he can wobble he can do the twist
but most of all he cant do this close your eyes and count ten if you messs up start ova again
1, 2, 3, 4, ...
- Cece http://blog.oftheoctopuses.com/000518.php; 10/9/2005
-snip-
To repeat, I don't think that the phrases "The spades go" or "The space goes" mean anything now. But I do think that those introductory phrases were chanted to inform listeners that the rhymes that followed came from Black children or were (supposedly) going to be performed in the same way that Black children performed them. Given the often still prevailing stereotypical views in the USA and in other Western societies that Black people have rhythm & can dance better than people of other races, saying that a rhyme came from Black people or was performed a certain way by Black people served as authentication of that particular rhyme and movement activity. Saying and performing a rhyme "the Black way" meant doing it "the right way" or at least doing it a more soulful way.
I've indicated that "The spades go" actually meant "The Black (children or people) go (say this rhyme like this and/or do this rhyme like this). Here's an example of a children's rhyme that actually says "The Blacks go:
SHIMMY SHIMMY COKE-CA-POP
The Blacks go down, down, baby,
Down by the roller coaster,
Sweet, sweet baby,
I don't want-a let you go,
Just because I kissed you once,
Son't mean I love you so.
Shimmy, shimmy, shimmy, shimmy,
Shimmy, shimmy, pop!
Shimmy, shimmy, shimmy, shimmy,
Shimmy, shimmy, coke-ca-pop!
- John Langstaff and carol Langstaff: "Shimmy Shimmy Coke-Ca-Pop! A Collection of City Children's Street Ganes and Rhymes (Garden City, New York, Doubleday & Company,1973; p. 78)
-snip-
*See my comments in this Mudcat discussion thread http://www.mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=81350#1922124 about my reaction as an African American to the word "spades" used as a derogatory referent for Black people. Included in that comment is the cautionary note to those who recite "The Spades go" rhyme-or teach this rhyme to children-that some people [I was thinking of Black people, but I can also understand how some non-Black people] might take exception to this referent and see it as being offensive, even if no offense was intended.
****
"Oh Shelly's Out"
Most of the transcriptions of the "rap" from the 1988 movie "Big" give the "Oh Shalita, walkin down the street" line as "Oh, Shelly's out, walking down the street". However, it seems clear to me from listening to that particular interview that Tom Hanks is NOT saying "Shelly's out". Some people give the word "Shalita" (which I think is a female name) as "Shelita" or Shalida" or Shalitah". Any of these names fit what Hanks is saying better than "Shelly"s out".
I think that "Shelly's out" is given so frequently for this rhyme because many people have simply copy what they hear or read elsewhere without carefully checking to see if that was what was actually chanted in that movie.
Another reason why the phrase "Shelly's out" is given so often may be because it appears to makes sense and is more familiar to some people than the word "Shalita", "Shelita" or "Shalida". The words "Shalita", "Shelita" or "Shalida" remind me of many contemporary African American female. These names may be modifications of the Arabic female name "Shahida", but their origin isn't pertinent to this discussion.
In the BBC interview whose video is posted below, Tom Hanks mentions that he got this rhyme from his son, who, in turn, learned it in camp. Neither Tom Hanks nor his son may be aware that "Down Down Baby" is a children's rhyme from African American traditions. The inclusion of a "African American" personal name such as "Shalita" ("Shalida" or "Shelita") is a further reflection of that rhyme's African American origins.
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"Oh. Shalida"-Folk Etymology For "Ah Beep Beep"
I believe that the line "Ooh Shellita/walking down the street" from the Big movie version of "Down Down Baby" are folk etymology forms of the line "Ah beep beep/walkin down the street":
AH BEEP BEEP (Version #1)
Ah Beep Beep
Walkin down the street
Ungawa. Ungawa
That means Black power.
White boy.
Destroy..
I said it. I meant it
And I’m here to represent it.
Soul sister number 9
Sock it to me one more time.
Uh hun! Uh Hun!
Source: Tracey S., African American female; childhood memories of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, 1968 ; collected by Azizi Powell, 2000
Visit Cocojams' Handclap Rhyme page for additional examples of this rhyme.
By the way, "Ungawa" is a movie industry made up expression found in Tarzan movies where it supposedly was how Native Americans, or Africans or other non-White people greeted each other or talked to each other. During the late 1960s, this word was taken up by Afro-centric Black Americans who added the rhyming phrase "Black power" (power pronounced here as "powah"). Thus the mocking meaning of this word was turned around and "ungawa" was used as a word/sound that positively connected us [Black people] to our African roots & the emerging Black power (Black nationalist) movement.
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"Ah Beep Beep"- Folk Etymology for "I'll Be"
It's possible that "Ah Beep Beep" is folk etymology for "I'll be, I'll be". See this version of the children's rhyme "I'll Be"
I'LL BE
I'll be, be,
Walking down the street,
Ten times a week.
Un-gawa, un-gawa, (baby)
This is my power.
What is the story?
What is the strike?
I saidit, I meant it.
I really represent it.
Take a cool, cool Black ti knock to knock me down.
Take a cool, cook Black to knock me out.
I'm sweet, I'm kind,
I'm soul sister number nine.
Don't like my apples,
Don't shake my tree,
I'm a Castle Square Black,
Don't mess with me.
-John Langstaff and carol Langstaff: "Shimmy Shimmy Coke-Ca-Pop! A Collection of City Children's Street Ganes and Rhymes (Garden City, New York, Doubleday & Company,1973; p. 57)
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"Sock it To Me"
"Sock it to me!" was a popular African American slogan during the 1960s that probably originated as a sexualized expression. However, my keenest remembrance of this saying is from Aretha Franklin's R&B song "Respect" in which she sings "Sock it to me", "Sock it to me", "Sock it to me". In the context of that record (at least for me) that line meant something like "Give it to me" or "Com' on with it" (with "it" being something good). When I was first heard Aretha Franklin singing "sock it to me", I thought she meant "Give me respect". And maybe that is what she meant. But in the context of that song, she certainly didn't mean "hit me". That's a whole 'nuther meaning for the slang word "sock".
I believe that originally the line "sock it to me one more time" in "Ah Beep Beep" didn't have anything to do with hitting. But that phrase came to mean "physically hit me" in the movie version of that rhyme probably because some non-Black people who learned this rhyme didn't know the Black meaning of the slang phrase "sock it to me" or didn't care about the Black cultural meaning of that phrase.
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"She Said A Triscuit, a Biscuit"
See these examples of African American children's rhyme that contains the lines "ah biscuit" and other lines found in the "Big" movie version of "Down Down Baby":
DOEMENIQUE DOEMENIQUE
Doeminique Doeminique a biscuit
Ooh cheechee wah wah
A biscuit.
How do you like your lover
Ah biscuit.
He's so fine.
Oh a biscuit.
Just like cherry wine.
Oh a biscuit.
How do you know it isn't so.
Ice cream (ice cream)*
Soda pop (soda pop)*
Ginger-ale (ginger-ale)*
Seven up (seven up)
Now it's time to do your thing,
Now freeze.
--Eleanor Fulton and Pat Smith "Let's Slice The Ice" (St. Louis, Missouri, Magnamusic-Baton; 1978; p. 32)
This is given as a handclap rhyme. Note: "a" is pronounced "ah" in this rhyme and in most African American children's rhymes.
-snip-
Here's another example of an "Ah Biscuit" rhyme
RONALD MCDONALD HAD A BISCUIT
Ronald McDonald had a biscuit
Oooh, chee chee wah wah a biscuit
I had a boyfriend a biscuit
he was so fine a biscuit
like a cherry pie a biscuit
now watch me, now watch me, now watch me do my thing
I said a popcorn cherry pie
bang bang choo choo train
chally wally shake my body
tutti frutti shake my booty
uh i'm goin down uh into the ground
uh i'm comin up uh like hot stuff uh
she push me down uh into the ground
uh i'm comin up uh to kick your but
i'm sorry, i'm sorry, i thought you did karate!
-Tierney; 2/36/2009; submission to Cocojams Handclap Rhyme page
-snip-
It should be noted that "triscuit" is an America brand name for a type of biscuit.
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"Ice Cream Soda"
The line "ice cream, soda pop, vanilla on the top" may have come from this children's jump rope rhyme:
ICE CREAM
Ice cream soda
with the cherry on top
Tell me the name
of your sweetheartt.
A B C D E F G H etc.
Brenda Brenda
Do you love Kenny?
Yes, no, maybe so.
Yes, no, maybe so.
How many children will you have?
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, etc.
-Eleanor Fulton and Pat Smith "Let's Slice The Ice" (St. Louis, Missouri, Magnamusic-Baton; 1978; p. 29)
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YouTube video: Tom Hanks does the 'Big' rap - Friday Night with Jonathan Ross
Posted by BBC
May 08, 2009
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See examples of "Down Down Baby" that are posted on Cocojams's Handclap Rhyme page. Also see examples of "I Like Coffee I Like Tea" (I Love Coffee I Love Tea"), "Down Down Baby I Know Karate" , "Ah Beep Beep" that are posted on Cocojams's Handclap Rhyme page that contain lines that are very similar to some lines in "Down Down Baby" rhymes. In addition, see examples of the rhymes that contain the introductory phrase "the space goes" or "the spades go" on Cocojams' Handclap Rhyme page.
I encourage you to send in your comments about my text analysis of this rhyme. Comments can be sent to cocojams17@yahoo.com
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