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The “Readings” section of the August Harper’s contains a selection of ribald children’s songs from around the world. I’ve listed a dozen examples below, but if you’re interested in learning more (or contributing the exotic off-color rhymes you learned during your travels), visit the Global Schoolyard Rhyme Project at a rather unusual website known as The Sneeze (motto: “Half zine. Half blog. Half not good with fractions.”).
GERMANY
Aya popaya
Beat the rooster to death.
He doesn’t lay eggs
And he eats my bread.
CHANNEL ISLANDS
“What’s your name?”
“My name is my name,
And yours is written under the pig’s tail!”
RUSSIA
First of May, first of May,
A lame hen
And a cross-eyed rooster
Choked on a sausage.
SLOVENIA
Someone is crying
What’s with him?
He’s pissed his pants,
He’s ashamed.
BANGLADESH
Ada Pada Lobon Chaadaa,
Who has farted?
You!!
QUEBEC
It’s Martine
Who’s not nice,
Who peed in her boots
On Saint Catherine Street
On her motorcycle.
ISRAEL
Steve the fat guy,
Within his stomach there’s a child.
What’s the child’s name?
Steve the fat guy!
BRAZIL
Jingle bells, jingle bells,
The toilet paper ran out.
No problem, wipe with the newspaper.
The newspaper is expensive.
Damned expensive!
What am I going to do to wipe my…
Jingle bells, jingle bells.
SOUTH AFRICA
I see a tortoise on the path.
I pick him up, he pees on me.
I put him down, he does it again.
Damn it!
HOLLAND
What you say applies to yourself,
With your head in half
With your head through the wall
You’ll be sorry again tomorrow!
DENMARK
If or if not my butt was pointy
And filled with lemonade,
Then you my friends could lick it
Until my buttocks were flat.
JAPAN
The Fox-Fox-Fox dog’s testicles,
Despite there being no wind blowing,
Are swaying, swaying, swaying.
