Bernie's Song
A rootie toot toot.
A rootie toot toot.
We are the boys from the institute. We don't smoke and we don't drink.
And we don't go with girls that stink.
Bernie went away to reform school. I don't remember what he did to earn his time there. He was a few years older than me. But when he came back he was always singing this song. If there is anyone out there that knows the origin of this little ditty please make a comment.
A rootie toot toot.
We are the boys from the institute. We don't smoke and we don't drink.
And we don't go with girls that stink.
Bernie went away to reform school. I don't remember what he did to earn his time there. He was a few years older than me. But when he came back he was always singing this song. If there is anyone out there that knows the origin of this little ditty please make a comment.
posted by Fred Garber at 7:01 AM
7 Comments:
Don't know, but look at the last chorus of this:
http://sniff.numachi.com/pages/tiBATNEWO2.html
Thanks....i saw a reference to it from the 1920's
Ah, well, that I'm sure would predate this reference I found! Interesting to see how the oral/folk traditions evolve, though. And then there's Greg Brown's (did he write it, or was it Bill Staines?) "Rootie Toot Toot for the Moon."
On some of the references "rootie" was "rooty".
...which makes me think of Frankie & Johnny, which I think is older than that. I wonder how old that onomatopoetic phrase is!
MB's find is Homer & Jethro's parody of the "Battle of New Orleans." The chorus the H&J have incorporated was recited to me by my grandfather, who was born about 1900-
A Rootie-Toot-Toot (A Rootie-Toot-Toot)
We're the boys from the Boy Scout Troop
We don't smoke and we don't chew
And we don't go with the girls that do.
JW this little ditty has quite a lot of variations!
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