Donkey riding
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The words came unbidden to my mind, ‘Hey ho, away we go, donkey riding, donkey riding.’ I hadn’t heard or sung that song for many years. Maybe it was seeing photographs of my youngest daughter’s family on holiday in France feeding donkeys that lodged in my mind and jogged my memory.
I started
wondering about its origins.
‘Were you ever in Quebec,
Loading timber on the deck,
Where there’s a king with a golden crown
Riding on a donkey?’
Hey, ho,
away we go,
Donkey riding, donkey riding,
Hey, ho, away we go,
Riding on a donkey.’
I seem to remember singing it when I was at school. Why school children in Kent should be singing about far-off Québec was a mystery. We didn’t question what we were taught to sing, just got on with it every Friday afternoon after walking to The Vines and back.
I discovered that it was a sea shanty – that did make sense, living in a Naval area. When I looked at the lyrics online, I found a variety of verses, some of which would definitely not have been taught at school.
I only remember the first verse. There are others, which I probably learnt – about Cape Horn and Cardiff Bay.
The song was a nineteenth-century folk song sung by sailors in Canada as they hauled lumber onto the ships, which then sailed away to distant lands, maybe ‘faraway places with strange sounding names.’ The ‘donkey’ was a steam-driven machine used to load and unload heavy cargo, not a four-legged animal. It was dangerous work, hence, in one version, ‘you’d nearly break your neck,’
The tune was
taken from an old Scottish folk song called ‘Highland Laddie.’
Gr8, also my first year of high school. My class was entered in a music festival singing that sone and one other, but I forget that one. As the time neared, I was told to sit it out because my voice was changing and neither here not there. No -- I never knew that it wasn't an animal donkey. Not did my music teacher.
ReplyDeleteI happily sang it, imagining riding along on a donkey.
DeleteThe Vines sounds like a pub, and what an excellent way to educate children about adult ways.
ReplyDeleteI can remember what I think were stationary petrol powered engines. used to run belt driven timber saws being called donkeys. Open belt driven anything are so dangerous.
The Vines used to be a small park, but now it's a wedding venue.
DeleteDonkeys (mechanical) are dangerous.
We forget a lot of stuff in our lives. I like your line "I seem to remember". No donkeys here.
ReplyDeleteHow much is memory and how much is dreams , so 'I seem to remember' fits well.
DeleteI have never heard of this one. In other news, I found a copy of The Phantom Tollbooth and it was delivered today 😃
ReplyDeleteI was wondering if you'd got your copy yet. I hope you enjoy it.
DeleteI am enjoying it, then putting it away for when the great grandson is old enough to read or have it read to him.
DeleteI have watched and listened to the song "Donkey Riding RCM Voice Prep Lev with Lyrics" on that YouTube channel. It reminds me of my children when they were both under 9 years old, if I’m not mistaken. They also loved cute songs like this and enjoyed watching Thomas & Friends.
ReplyDeleteIt's a jolly tune.
DeleteI remember these words, at least the chorus, from the mid 1950s!!
ReplyDeleteHey, ho, away we go,
Donkey riding, donkey riding,
Hey, ho, away we go,
Riding on a donkey.
But I read an excellent book last week and already I don't remember the author's name :(((
Physical books are fine and titles and authors can be remembered. Reading on a Kindle it's very easy to forget title and author.
DeleteOh I remember that song so well; we used to sing it, along with so many other old fashioned songs, at primary school!
ReplyDeleteHave a good week! 😁
Old-fashioned, but simple and fun - simple rhythm and melody, but sometimes mystifying lyrics.
DeleteI'm someone else who sang it at school too. We had books of folk songs and sang along to a record or radio broadcast once a week. One year it was English folk songs (The Lincolnshire Poacher, The Derby Ram etc) and the next year it was international songs. I remember that one, Yellow Bird and Kalinka.
ReplyDeleteI was still teaching 'Kalinka' twenty-five years ago!
DeleteDeep in the distant, dusty cobwebs of my memory that song is lingering.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the explanation of its origins. Many of us don't stop to think about the meaning behind such things as we take them at face value.
No-one ever thought to explain!
DeleteWe sang it at prep school, along with a load of innocent sounding but not so innocent folk songs... oh, no John, no John, no John no, oh sailor sailor won't you marry me, with your musket Fife and drum...
ReplyDeleteThe stories behind the songs would make your hair stand on end.
DeleteLoved the song, reminds me of donkeys on the beach at Weston-Super-Mare, every summer it would be a treat, except I would not ride them, I would walk along side them, but never get on one.
ReplyDeleteI don't think I've ever ridden a donkey, or walked alongside one. Pebbly beaches in Kent, so maybe donkeys weren't a popular entertainment.
DeleteI remember singing this as a kid, growing up in Ellesmere Port. We had docks, but we were also very near Liverpool so we sung a lot of shanties in class. I also vaguely remember Highland Laddie. It wouldn't have confused me at infant school but I would absolutely get confused now! Thank you for sharing - it's such a fun tune!
ReplyDeleteIt was fun to sing.
DeleteI vaguely remember the song too. A tune from happy days gone by, even sung in the colonies.
ReplyDeleteIt was popular in Canada and USA, as a work song.
DeleteYou ma'am are a mine of information. You cannot be accused of being a donkey.
ReplyDeleteNo, just an ass!
DeleteI actually was bicycling the other day and went by two donkeys. They've been on this farm for a lot of years but I only go there once or twice a year. They're fun to see.
ReplyDeleteI'd love to have kept donkeys, though I'd have to have gone on several courses, first. They're such beautiful animals.
DeleteLooking back at my childhood, I can recall enjoying donkey rides along the beach and the words:-
ReplyDeleteHey, ho, away we go,
Donkey riding, donkey riding,
Hey, ho, away we go,
Riding on a donkey.
But many thanks for the further information about this rhyme, I had no idea :)
Happy first of September.
All the best Jan
It was an easy song to learn, and therefore to teach, so perhaps that's why so many people are familiar with it.
DeleteIt's interesting how songs like this can be interpreted one way but they might have an entirely different meaning.
ReplyDeleteWe blithely sing what we may not understand . . .that's life.
DeleteIona Opie spent her life collecting songs and verses like this.
ReplyDeleteSee https://taskerdunham.blogspot.com/2022/08/my-very-first-mother-goose.html
Thank you for the link. Peter Opie died some years before his wife. Their work was exhaustively researched.
DeleteI have The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes, The Puffin Book of Nursery Rhymes, and The Classic Fairy Stories.
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ReplyDeleteI had forgotten all about this, TQ for the reminder , it rolled back the years, I remember the tune now too!
ReplyDeleteAlison in Devon x
It's such fun to sing.
DeleteI love the lyrical nature of a sea shanty.
ReplyDeleteDistinct rhythms for hauling, hammering and so forth. I've got a book of sea shanties and play them sometimes on the piano.
ReplyDeleteI like the verse
ReplyDeleteIt's a very lively verse.
DeleteI always learn such interesting things from your blog!
ReplyDeleteThank you.. 😊
ReplyDeleteThis is not a song I've ever heard. We didn't do sea shanties in school, but we did do racist folk songs like "Way down upon the Suwannee River..."
ReplyDeleteOn a small island like Britain we're never far from the sea, so shanties make sense. It's a different matter if you live in the middle of a vast tract of land, with no sight or sound of the sea.
Delete'Old folks at home' is the state song of Florida, I understand, but in modern, acceptable English. I'd never heard the slave version.
I remember donkey riding at the carnival when I was a kid.
ReplyDeleteHappy memories, I hope. 😊
DeleteHave never heard the song or ridden a donkey but Ihave kissed one. ha ha shocked everyone around when I leaned over and gave him a big MUAH between his eyes.. i love them but they sure are loud
ReplyDeleteWonderful animals!
Deleteand explains why the oilers are called Donkeymen. All my sefaring engineer friends refer to the engines as a donkey.
ReplyDeleteAll becomes clear eventually . . . 😜
DeleteA fun read! I remember donkey rides at the beach. I also remember being bitten by a donkey when I was 10. My fault! I fed him thrusting fingers first. A painful but important lesson. Food in open palm? I still love donkeys.
ReplyDeleteNot everyone can claim to have been bitten by a donkey, Denise. I bet your poor fingers were bruised.
DeleteIt's fun when something triggers something from your past that you have not thought about in a long time. It's funny how we can remember many of the words to songs we learned when we were young. Interesting post.
ReplyDeleteThe trouble arises when we remember events from long ago but cannot remember what happened yesterday!
DeleteI love those old folk songs!!!
ReplyDeleteThey root us to our past.
Delete