Episode 30: Miss Susie Had Steamboat

Join host Gina in this week's captivating episode of "A Tisket-Tasket Podcast" as she delves into the intriguing history behind the clapping song "Miss Susie Had a Steamboat." Discover the origins of this complex nursery rhyme, its ties to vaudeville acts, and how it reflects cultural shifts through the early 20th century. From steamboats to telephones, Gina explores the song's playful references to inventions of the time. Tune in for a fascinating journey through history, music, and cultural expression! Follow Miss Molly Whuppie on social media at https://www.youtube.com/@Mollywhuppiemusic! Subscribe and follow! 🕰️🎵 #Podcast #NurseryRhymes #HistoryUnveiled #CulturalShifts #MusicAndCulture

Transcript

  Hello, and welcome to this week's episode of a task at task at podcast. I'm your host, Gina. And today we're going to be talking about the clapping song. Miss Susie had a Steamboat. 

Before we get started. Here a couple of things that I need to talk about. I just had a procedure at last week, which caused my neck and vocal chords to be quite swollen. Actually, I just got my voice back today and I didn't want to go two weeks without having an episode. So please, excuse my voice itself, Craig Ellie and whatnot. 

But follow me on social media for any updates. Regarding my health regarding the podcast, anything like that? Second check out the description for a link to my website. I am still looking for assistance to get out to Portland conference. For the American folklore conference in November. 

Any little bit helps. And it helps me do what I love and what I do. Thank you. To those who've already contributed. In any case today, we're going to be talking about the nursery rhyme. In clapping song, miss Suzy had a steam boat. 

Listeners. Hold onto your hats.  Because this is a complicated nursery around to explain. First this nursery rhyme is not found on the rallied folk song, index archive. Which I believe is the first for this podcast. It doesn't mean it isn't a nursery rhyme or folk song worth talking about. 

But I do wonder why it did not make the list. Perhaps it's because it had. Too many variations to consider us as a specific song. I've had a difficult time tracking down its history and more than any other nursery room that I've studied, its form is ever changing. First let's talk about what all these different versions have in common. Ms. Susie, as I'll refer to it at for this podcast episode. 

Is a school yard rhyme made up of verses that lead up to profanity or a suggestion of a rude act. Is generally known as a jump rope game or clapping game. Depending on the lyrics, there are additional hand signals or sounds that . We had company. It. For example, when referencing the Steamboat, the speaker may do. 

Further these songs are all arranged the same. They are arranged in quatrains with an a, B, C, B rhyme scheme. It's organized by it's meter called a sprung rhyme in try meter. Sprung rhyme is a poetic rhythm that imitates the rhythm of natural speech. It is written with the first syllable being stressed, followed by on stress syllables. 

British poet, Gerard Manley Hopkins coined this term. Referencing poets like Shakespeare and Milton. 

This type of poetry also has something to do with the number of feet per line of poetry, but I don't understand poetry enough to really go into it. Ms. Susie also contains in jam mints, which besides being a delightful word to say. Means that the poems lines and with 

incomplete syntax and the meaning runs over from one line to another. Another example of this is from Ts. Eliot's the wasteland of which I'm a huge fan. If you're confused by in Jim mitts page. And to the end of the lines of the poem, when I read it, Part of the humor of this rhyme comes from this form of poetry. 

Also these songs share the melody of the merry-go-round broke down. Written in 1937, which was used a first in Merry melodies and then including tunes. So it's going to sound familiar. I honestly didn't hear the melody. The first time I listened to it until I realized that clapping games and jump rope songs. Usually have a much faster tempo. 

Now, before I get into how this is a complicated nursery or I'm to discuss, let me read out the rhyme. That I'm referring to. And again, I'll share that this rhyme has a lot of different variations and if you know it yourself, it's probably going to be different to the one I'm reading. But this is the one I'm most familiar with. 



This is going to be kind of difficult to read without its own rhythm, but I'll try. Ms. Susie had a Steamboat. This 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 frigerator, there was a piece of class Ms. Sudi sat upon it and broke her little. 

Ask me no more questions. Tell me no more lies. The boys are in the bathroom. Zipping down there. Flies are in the meadow. The bees are in the park. Miss Susie and her boyfriend are kissing in the D a R K dark, dark, dark. D a R K D a R K, dark, dark, dark. Now after I've read it, you can hear those MGM mitts. Right? So the first one is the Steamboat went to hello operator. 

You can put two and two together. 

Of course, it feels impossible to read that without the assumed stresses.  You can probably hear how it easily translate into either a clapping game or jump room song. Let's listen to some audio versions. Before I get into the varied in complicated history of this nursery rhyme. 

I'm going to play two audio clips for you in this section. The first is the melody that was either inspired by the song or use the rhythm to inspire it. I'm not sure which came first. This is the 1937 Brunswick record recording of the merry-go-round broke down. Now when you listen to it.

  



 Trying to imagine it sped up. If you can, this is kind of how you, you get the idea that this rhythm. 

Came from this record. Now I suspect that the clapping game came before this recording. As it seems to have been popular in the early 20th century. And we'll get to that a minute. 



The second is from YouTube Tik TOK creator, Molly whoopee. Who's channel  music for children. Folk is just absolutely fantastic. She gave me the permission to play her version of Ms. Suzy. Please find the link to her work in the description of the podcast, as well as my reference page on the blog. 

She's also really interested in the history of these songs. And she's interested in preserving a lot of these songs. For future children. I absolutely enjoy working with her. I enjoy her. Intelligence and take on these types of songs. And I really hope that we can collaborate in the future. But for now, let's listen to her version of Ms. Suzy. 

  





 Isn't that amazing. I really love that creators today are still. Using these as inspiration and they're doing the same thing I'm doing well. I like to look into the history of these songs. They are keeping the songs alive. And I really can't think. Molly enough for the work she does. And please go and support her channel. 

Let's talk about the history of this song. 

This nursery rhyme or clapping song or jump rope song, whatever you'd like to call it. Originated as a vaudeville act. Now I don't have enough time to go into the history of vaudeville and this podcast episode, but I'd like to cover a little bit more of it. Perhaps in the next episode, when I talk about how all three of these jumping songs have in common, 

Going back to Ms. Suzy. It like many nursery rhymes develop many variations through oral tradition. And let me tell you, most of them are not children friendly. In fact, when reading up on the surprisingly developed Wikipedia page about these, a quote that stood out to me was the songs were sometimes political, usually openly crude in occasionally  infant Sidell. 

One of the first publication references of this rhyme appears in ed Lowery's files that were later compiled into the book, my life and vaudeville, the autobiography of ed Larry published in 2007. At Lowery 1896 to 1983 was a vaudeville comic saxophone player in MC. He wasn't particularly famous, but what he did have was a huge collection of vaudeville sketches, arts scores, and more. 

This collection was a treasure trove of vaudeville history. Vaudeville theater was popular from the late 18 hundreds until about world war one. It was a variety of stage show lasting, usually between two and four hours. Now vaudeville acts contain all sorts of entertainment from juggling to shooting expeditions. 

The humor range from political to the absurd. Big vaudeville names include stars like will Rogers, Harry Houdini and per Kelton. American vaudeville acts appeared all over the country from the civil way to traveling shows and it didn't just appear in theater. It also appeared on rivers in steamboats or as they were later coined showboats and. 

That is referenced in the nursery rhyme. 

Songs like miss Susie. We're a big part of vaudeville theater. The shows weren't necessarily for the family. Instead, , they often contained satirical political or body topics. Oddly enough. I see a big parallel between the songs and nursery rhymes. They were often in the same poetry meter as nursery rhymes. They're often passed down orally. And they were easy to remember. And of course, easy to join in as they were song or perform to the crowd. They also contain cultural nuggets that an audience would understand and recognize. But again, this may otherwise be lost a time in history. 

Now vaudeville shows were performed all over the country, as I've mentioned. And they were performed almost every day, the week. So, for example, at the Savoy,  there are different shows throughout the week. And of course, These shows often had to change or.  Update acts and you couldn't just sing miss Susie every night  because there may be repeat audience members. 

 What was easy to do was just  change the lyrics to the same melody so much like Saturday night live, for example. Performers or vaudeville probably took political or current events that happen during the week or during the day and incorporated that into the act. 

Perhaps they're the reason why there are so many versions of Ms. Susie had a Steamboat, was that performers. Just add, live that more added to them as cultural events happened. And Ms. Suzy probably just stuck to time. Y, I don't know. I think a story and better. Enlightened than I could, could probably tell you that. 

Now with that these songs often made fun of, or reference cultural idioms, such as  the Steamboat, the telephone in this one and later it talks about a bra. So they talked about inventions or they talked about things that were used in everyday life.

For example, the refrigerator, once it was Ms. Sue, there was a piece of glass bottom refrigerator. The refrigerator was invented in 1805 by American inventor. All of our Evans designed as a blueprint for the first refrigerator machine. But it wasn't like a refrigerator today. It was like more like a cooling box. 

The telephone, for example, it wasn't invented until the 20th century, but we'll talk about how it was used. So these inventions or the things that were talked about in these clapping songs were something known by the everyday people. 

What I do find interesting in the refrigerator case is the. Ice boxes were more common in homes than refrigerators. So it wasn't really until after world war one. That refrigerators became more common in people's houses.  Again, I don't know if Ms. Suzy. The version that I know. Was changed. After world war II or after world war one, and perhaps the first version used as nice box, but. 

But then again, its use of,  Operator is unique. Sorry. I'm speculating as I'm recording. So I'll get to that in a minute. 

But as I mentioned, 

The whole point of that is that these vulnerable songs talked about inventions, talked about cultural ideas that talked about political ideas that happen at the time that were incorporated in these songs. Now, when we think about miss Suzy there were a few things that stood out in the lyrics that I wanted to think about and how it was used in American life. And those three things where the refrigerator, the steam boat and the operator. Now I talked a little bit about the refrigerator, the refrigerator wasn't really in American households until after world war. 

And before that they were mostly ice boxes, which were think of like, Wooden chess about hip height that were filled with ice. In fact, my mother had a few antique ice boxes that we ended up putting our shoes in. Cause we weren't gonna use it as ice boxes. But again, I. Am unsure when this nursery rang changed from ice box to refrigerator. 

As an example. Now, when we think about the Steamboat, the Steamboat was invented in the late 18th century, but by the 20th century, steamboats were made obsolete by railroads. Steam boats were mostly used as a tourist attraction called showboats. Perhaps. In the nursery rhyme, it's referenced because vaudeville. Shows were performed on showboats fame, vaudeville actor. Buster Keaton, start in a film called Steamboat bill. You can find it on YouTube. It's just absolutely wonderful. But there's also a faint vaudeville song by the same name. And it has that, all those elements that I talked about, it does have a 

Full narrative about a Steamboat captain named bill who is trying to beat. Another seen boat in the race, down the Mississippi, and go ahead and listen to it.  I believe it's from 1919, and it's also hilarious.  When we think about the timeline of these things, steamboats weren't really used in the 20th century, but vaudeville was popular from the late 19th century, October. We're a one. 

 If you kind of think of the Venn diagram, Of. When these things were invented to when they were popularized. You kind of get the idea that Ms. Susie was probably popular around the early 20th century. Now, when we think about the telephone, we think of. 

And we consider it with the lyrics of Ms. Suzy.  If we go back and think about the lyrics. It says, hello operator, please give me number nine. And if you disconnect me, I'll kick you from. Assume lead behind.  When we think about the use of operators and we think about how you're using the telephone in the early 20th century, the owner of the telephone would have to call an exchange. 

And in the exchange,  there was a switchboard operator. Usually a woman. I must note. And a switchboard operator would answer the caller would give the operator the name or the number of the person. He or she wanted to contact. So in this case, number nine would be whatever the switch that they would have to use the operator would 

Then use a patch or plug into a court into that person's socket on the switchboard. And you can imagine how easily it would be to disconnect the person. That's how it was connected to miss Susie out of Steamboat. 

And operators were used in telephones until around the 1930s. Because after that dial phones became popular. Now again, when I go back and think about that. The Venn diagram.  We have steamboats and showboats we have the refrigerator and we have the operator. You can kind of see like  is this anachronism or this incongruency. So if I had to guess. 

I think Ms. Susie was  probably popularized in the early 20th century. And then the version that I just used was likely adapted or changed around the 1930s or forties, because. I would guess that these cultural references were maybe outdated, but still recognizable.  To go back to the whole point of this podcast. 

Or we can't really pinpoint. The origin of this  but by looking at the lyrics and looking. Looking at what was popular at the time. I suspect it's origins can be really placed in vaudeville in the early 20th century. And if we think about what happened then in the 20th century, big events are where we're one on. 

We're too. I think that the songs that were sung by the troops and a world war one, To help camaraderie and just help beat the horrors of war. We're probably some of these vaudeville songs, because as I mentioned, these fought, those songs were easy to remember. Easy to adapt. And we're relatable to most people. 

And so I think that Ms. Suzy. Probably. Became popular in the early 20th century and then survived as a song that was easy to remember, easy to sing, easy to adapt through the world wars. And I think, I remember, I'm not sure when I learned a song, but I remember using it in elementary school. So perhaps it was a camp song that I picked up. 

But nevertheless, I'm going to have a less than traditional conclusion to this podcast because my voice is going as you can probably hear. And it is time for me to stop talking. But we've learned a lot today and there's still so much more than I want to explore.  In the next episode, I'd like to take time to look at the history of these jump rope songs in clapping songs. And I just know it's going to talk about 

the Lowe's of American history and its roots in slavery. But I also think it's going to I think we're going to discover some of that unique cultural. History. In American entertainment, which includes these vaudeville acts and how these vaudeville acts. 



We're remembered up until, through the 19th, through the 20th century, into the 21st. I still think that these songs are easier to remember easy to sing and silly enough to remember. 

And that's what I'd like to uncover in next week's episode. But for now. Thank you for listening. I didn't want to go two weeks without having an episode. And even though my voice is going, I just wanted to get something out there. Thank you for listening and join me next week, where I will continue to talk about the weirdness of nursery rhymes.