| "Pop! Goes the Weasel" | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Piano arrangement, 1853 | |
| Instrumental | |
| Genre | Jig |
| Songwriter(s) | Traditional |
"Pop! Goes the Weasel" (Roud 5249) is a traditional English and American song, a country dance, nursery rhyme, and singing game that emerged in the mid-19th century.[1][2][3] It is commonly used in jack-in-the-box toys and for ice cream trucks.[2][4]
In the early 1850s, Miller and Beacham of Baltimore published sheet music for "Pop goes the Weasel for Fun and Frolic".[5][6] This is the oldest known source that pairs the name to this tune. Miller and Beacham's music was a variation of "The Haymakers", a tune dating back to the 1700s.[5] Gow's Repository of the Dance Music of Scotland (1799 to 1820), included "The Haymakers" as country dance or jig. One modern expert believes the tune, like most jigs, originated in the 1600s.[5]
In June 1852, the boat Pop Goes The Weasel competed in the Durham Regatta.[7] By December 1852, "Pop Goes The Weasel" was a popular social dance in England.[8] A ball held in Ipswich on 13 December 1852 ended with "a country dance, entitled 'Pop Goes the Weasel', one of the most mirth inspiring dances which can well be imagined."[8]
On 24 December 1852, an ad in the Birmingham Journal offered lessons in the "Pop Goes The Weasel" dance, described as a "highly fashionable Dance, recently introduced at her Majesty's and the Nobility's private soirees".[9] On 28 December 1852, an advertisement in The Times promoted a publication that included "the new dance recently introduced with such distinguished success at the Court balls" and contained "the original music and a full explanation of the figures by Mons. E. Coulon".[10] Eugene Coulton was a dance-master of international renown.[3] In January 1853, the Bath Chronicle featured an advertisement from dance master, Mr. T. B. Moutrie, for "instruction in the highly fashionable dances" including "Pop Goes the Weasel".[11]
Sheet music dated 1853 at the British Library describes it as "An Old English Dance, as performed at Her Majesty's & The Nobilities Balls, with the Original Music".[12] Also In 1853, American sheet music referred to it as "an old English Dance lately revived".[5]
Originally, the dance was an instrumental jig except for the refrain "pop goes the weasel" which was sung or shouted as one pair of dancers moved under the arms of the other dancers.[1][5] The British Library's 1853 tune is very similar to that used today but the only lyrics are "pop goes the weasel".[12] The Library of Congress has similar sheet music with an arrangement by James W. Porter in 1853.[13] Like its British counterpart, its only lyrics are "pop goes the weasel". Porter's version also describes the dance as taught at Mr. Sheldon's Academy in Philadelphia:
FIGURES: Form in Two Lines – Top Couple Ballaneez, Four Bars – then Gallop down inside and back, Four Bars – take the next Lady, Hands Round Four Bars – then Two Bars back and (while all Sing Pop goes the Weasel) pass her under your arms to her Place – Repeat with the lady's Partner then Gallop down the inside and back, Four Bars – and down outside to the other end of the line, Four Bars, which finishes the Figure – The next couple follows, &c. &c.[13]
By 1854, Louis S. D. Rees "changed completely" the arrangement with "easy & brilliant variations".[3] A modern music historian notes, "This bravura version introduces the theme as a jig, as in the original, but the variations are in 2/4 and 4/4, much better for showing off fast fingerwork. No dancing to this one!"[3]
The popular dance was performed on stage and in stage and dance halls.[14][15][6] By late 1854, lyrics were added to the well-known tune, with the first singing performance possibly at the Grecian Theatre.[16][17] In 1855, The National Society for Promoting the Education of the Poor in England and Wales wrote that the song, commonly played by hand–organs on the streets, had "senseless words".[18] In their monthly newsletter, the society referred to the song as "street music" on the level of "negro tunes", saying it was "contagious and pestilent".[18] In another newsletter, the society wrote, "Worst of all.. almost every species of ribaldry and low wit has been rendered into rhyme to suit it."[19]
In 1856, a letter to The Morning Post read, "For many months, everybody has been bored to death with the eternal grinding of this ditty on street."[20] Since at least the late 19th century, the nursery rhyme was used with a British children's game similar to musical chairs.[12] The players sing the first verse while dancing around rings.[12] There is always one ring less than the number of players.[12] When the "pop goes the weasel" line is reached, the players rush to secure a ring.[12] The player that fails to secure a ring is eliminated as a "weasel".[12] There are succeeding rounds until the winner secures the last ring.[12]
In America, the tune became a standard in minstrel shows, featuring additional verses that frequently covered politics.[3] Charley Twigg published his minstrel show arrangement in 1855 with the refrain "Pop goes de weasel.".[3][21]
The lyrics may have predated the dance as either a rhyme or the lyrics of another song going dating to the 1600s.[1][3] Regardless, there are many different versions of the lyrics.[5] In England, most versions share the basic verse:
The most common additional verses are:[5][1]
Up and down the City Road,
In and out the Eagle,
That's the way the money goes,
Pop! Goes the weasel.
Every night when I go out,
The monkey's on the table,
Take a stick and knock it off,
Pop! Goes the weasel.
A penny for a spool of thread
A penny for a needle,
That's the way the money goes,
Pop! Goes the weasel.
All around the cobbler's bench
The monkey chased the weasel;
The monkey thought 'twas all in fun,
Pop! Goes the weasel.
When the song crossed the Atlantic in the 1850s, the British lyrics were still changing.[1] In the United States, the most common lyrics are different and may have a separate origin.[1] The following lyrics were printed in Boston in 1858:
The March 1860 issue of the Southern Literary Messenger published a new verse:
Queen Victoria's very sick,
Prince Albert's got the measles.
The children have the whooping cough,
And pop! Goes the weasel.[5]
In New York in 1901, the opening lines were, "All around the chicken coop / The possum chased the weasel."[22] By the mid-20th century, the standard United States version had replaced the "cobbler's bench" with a "mulberry bush":
All around the mulberry bush
The monkey chased the weasel;
The monkey thought it was all in fun...
Pop! goes the weasel.
Or the standard United States version had this line.
All around the cobbler's bench
The monkey chased the weasel;
The monkey thought it was all in fun...
Pop! goes the weasel.[2]
In 1994, the American Folklife Center documented a version of the song with sixteen verses.[3]
There has been much speculation about the meaning of the phrase and song title, "Pop Goes the Weasel".[1][6] Some say a weasel is a tailor's flat iron, silver-plate dishes, a dead animal, a hatter's tool, or a spinner's weasel.[1][23][17] One writer notes, "Weasels do pop their heads up when disturbed and it is quite plausible that this was the source of the name of the dance."[1]
Just like the dancers to this jig, the spinner's weasel revolves, but to measure the thread or yarn produced on a spinning wheel.[6] Forty revolutions of most weasels produce eighty yards (73 m) of yarn or a skein.[24] The weasel's wooden gears are designed to make a popping sound after the 40th revolution to tell the spinner that the skein is completed.[23][25][26][6]
Iona and Peter Opie observed that no one seemed to know what the phrase meant at the height of the dance craze in the 1850s.[12] It may just be a nonsensical phrase.[1]
The first verse refers to "tuppenny rice" and "treacle" which are food.[6] At the time, one pound of rice pudding cost two pennies or a tuppenny in slang; treacle is a gooey syrup used as a topper to sweeten the rice pudding.[27] A modern writer notes, it was "the cheapest and nastiest food" available to London's poor.[6]
Some lyrics in the British version may originate with Cockney slang and rhyming slang.[27][5][1] In the mid-19th century, "pop" was a well-known slang term for pawning something—and City Road had a well-known pawn establishment in the 1850s.[5][1] In this Cockney interpretation, "weasel" is Cockney rhyming slang for "weasel and stoat" meaning "coat".[27][5] Thus, to "pop the weasel" meant to pawn your coat.[27] However, one author notes that the Cockney rhyming slang "weasel and stoat" was not used until the 1930s.[1] Another early source says weasel was slang for silver-plate cups and dishes or anything of value that was pawnable.[17]
In 1905, The London Globe and The New York Times published a story saying that a "weasel" was a coin purse made of weasel skin that closed with a "snap".[17]
The "Eagle" on City Road in the song's second verse may refer to a famous pub in London.[28][29][5] The Eagle Tavern was on City Road, rebuilt as a music hall in 1825, and rebuilt in 1901 as a public house called The Eagle.[30][31][5] As one writer concludes, "So the second verse says that visiting the Eagle causes one's money to vanish, necessitating a trip up the City Road to Uncle [the pawn shop] to raise some cash."[5]
Today, The Eagle has the lyrics to this verse painted on a plaque on its façade.[20][6]
In the third verse, the monkey may relate to drinking.[5] In the 19th century, sailors called the glazed jugs used in public houses a "monkey".[5][6] A "stick" was a shot of alcohol such as rum or brandy.[5] To "knock it off" meant to knock it back—or to drink it.[5][6] The night out drinking used up all the money, conveyed in the lyrics "that's the way the money goes."[6]
The fourth verse relates to a tailor and clothing.[5] Purchasing thread and needles may refer to paying for the items needed to work.[6]
The meaning of the fifth verse is more elusive.[5] Here, "monkey" may refer to the slang use of the word for money worries, as in "monkey on your back".[citation needed] To be chased by the monkey could mean having money troubles—one way out was to pawn your coat.[citation needed] It also might refer to the actual animal, commonly associated with the organ grinders who played this jig.[5]
With some versions and interpretations of the lyrics, "pop goes the weasel" is said to be erotic or ribald, including a crude metaphor for sexual intercourse.[18][32] In her autobiographical novel Little House in the Big Woods (1932), American author Laura Ingalls Wilder recalled her father singing these lyrics in 1873:
All around the cobbler's bench,
The monkey chased the weasel.
The preacher kissed the cobbler's wife—
Pop! goes the weasel!![33]
AllMusic lists hundreds of recordings of "Pop Goes the Weasel."[34] Some of the most notable recordings are included below:
