Animal Fair (song)

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Animal Fair (Roud 4582 [1] ) is a traditional folk song and children's song. It was sung by minstrels and sailors as early as 1898. [2] The song was referred to in Life magazine in 1941 as a cadence of soft shoe tap dancing. [3]

Contents

Lyrics

The 1898 version has the following lyrics: [2]

I went to the animal fair,
The birds and the beasts were there;
The little baboon by the light of the moon
Was combing his auburn hair.
The monkey he got drunk,
And sat on the elephant's trunk,
The elephant sneezed and went down on his knees
And what became of the monk?

Other versions substituted "the old raccoon" (1915) [4] for "the little raccoon", while modern recordings use "the big baboon". "The monkey he got drunk" is sometimes changed to "The monkey fell out of his bunk", "The monkey bumped the skunk", "You ought to have seen the monk" or "You should have seen the monk", "the monkey jumped and jumped". The Barney & Friends and the Captain Kangaroo versions changed other lyrics as well.

The song may be sung as a round with the last word "monkey, monkey" repeated until the song finishes or the group repeats.

Recordings

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References

  1. ↑ "VWML archives: English Folk Dance and Song Society".
  2. 1 2 "The Chicago record's war stories". 1898. Retrieved 1 January 2016.
  3. ↑ Lincoln Barnett, "Fred Astaire", Life magazine, August 25, 1941
  4. ↑ Frank Hobart Cheley, G. Cornelius Baker, Camp and outing activities
  5. ↑ "Animal Fair" from Captain Kangaroo's Treasure House of Best-Loved Songs
  6. ↑ bmacv (6 October 1978). "The Big Fix (1978)". IMDb. Retrieved 1 January 2016.
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