Talk:Pop Goes the Weasel/Archive 1

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Poor quality research
This article doesn't do Wikipedia proud. The presentation of various lyrics is great. But the interpretations are only partly supported by the references given at the end of the article. Only the Quinion link goes any way to explaining the song, and he expresses much more reserve than the article. Surely someone has published something on the origins of this song? The interpretations need more than weblinks and hearsay to support them. The cockney interpretation, without a lot more evidence, seems rather farfetched if one applies Ockham's Razor.--Iacobus (talk) 04:14, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Location
"The original theme seems to have been a darkly humorous vignette of the cycle of poverty among workers in the East End of London" - no, the City Road isn't in the East End, rather it runs north from the City of London. Unless someone provides a definite connection to the East End soon, I shall edit that out. P.M.Lawrence203.194.49.100 (talk) 12:16, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Old English country dance version
this version has nothing to do with the folk rhyme but goes back to the British Regency. It's in a collection with a song called Brighton Camp. http://ks.imslp.net/files/imglnks/usimg/1/11/IMSLP535935-PMLP866480-CSharp_Country_Dance_Tunes_Set_1_no.9removed.pdf 100.15.127.199 (talk) 16:54, 14 December 2019 (UTC)

Unnecessary amount of American versions?
As this is, like most nursery rhymes, of British origin, do we need such a vast amount of American alternatives? Not only is it tiresome to look at it makes the article look untidy. How about we keep a select few of the more popular American versions, and tidy up (i.e. get rid of) the rest? Orphan Wiki 19:52, 2 January 2010 (UTC)


 * I agree. They make the whole thing very hard to read. They should be deleted or moved to wikisource.--''' SabreBD  (talk ) 20:08, 2 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Well, I've got rid of the majority and kept the more well known ones. Orphan Wiki 19:13, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Knock It Off vs Knock It Back
I'm not a Cockney but I do have some knowledge of London slang, and in my experience "Knock it off" means "Stop doing that". To drink something rapidly (usually in one go) is to "Knock it back". Compare Knock It Off vs Knock It Back.

How sure are you that "Knock It Off" in this context means to swig the drink? AncientBrit (talk) 02:30, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

The Marx Brothers: Duck Soup
There is one important reference missing. In the 1933 motion picture "Duck Soup" by the Marx Brothers the dictator of Freedonia, Rufus T. Firefly (Groucho), in a song lets us know what will happen to anyone not obeying his rules: ..we line them up against the wall, and Pop Goes The Weasel - holding a stick like a rifle. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.228.131.180 (talk) 23:41, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I added it. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 00:41, 13 July 2008 (UTC)
 * How in the world did we miss that one, eh? :) Cinemaniac (talk •  contribs  •  critique) 02:34, 13 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Hiding in plain sight, I guess. :) Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 04:17, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Whatever
Can I get some --any -- reference to rhyming slang existing in the 17th century? What? No? If not, can we junk the shockingly questionable second possible meaning? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.27.178.67 (talk) 16:06, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

unsure of the proper protocol for adding a comment...
Some interesting add-ons to the slang interpretation: 1) a "monkey" was a £500 note 2) a "stick of glue" was slang for someone of Jewish decent 3) to "knock off" something was to steal it

I personally think the wedding ring version of "weasel" makes more sense than pawning a coat since it might result in more money to buy food (and a night at the pub). Then the entire song would be interpreted as a husband's humorous attempt to explain the missing ring and the resulting absence of the money.

The second verse then would be the suggestion that the money was left on the table and stolen. The cockney rhyming then would hide the anti-semitism.

It seems that when the song migrated out of London few understood what it meant so it became changed in subsequent attempts to get some meaning out of it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.8.76.15 (talk) 03:41, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

I would add to this that I'm guessing the original slang version wasn't "All around the Mulberry Bush" but instead...

"All around the old Bull & Bush"... (another pub reference). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.8.76.15 (talk) 03:48, 22 August 2012 (UTC)


 * If you are guessing please do not add it as it will fall under original research.--  SabreBD  (talk ) 09:34, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Rosewater
I neither remember that detail, nor remember encountering in the novel anything so non-sequitur-ish as this mention. I removed ". . . with the knowledge that he is tone deaf" w/o prejudice to an appropriate revision. It may be that it can't be included w/o too much detail: this is not the place to tell amusing stories abt the song, but to link to refs to it. A Rosewater ref is appropriate, but the phrase above adds nothing as it stands: it is a non-sequitur, since the difference in intention between humming it in someone's presence and doing so the that knowledge is speculative, since tone-deafness affects singing, but affects listening only when a recognition or imitation task is involved. That said, only so much detail is justified; it's hard to know how sense can be made out of the inclusion of the tone-deafness mention without telling far to much of the story. If you can do so, your colleagues stand ready to be astounded by you. --Jerzy•t 03:41, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Pop Goes the Weasel
Even cursory research on Amazon books reveals "The secret meaning of nursery rhymes" by Albert Jack, and an alternative explanation of the song "Pop Goes the Weasel" from the songs of immigrant textile workers. The sound "pop" was evidently made by a machine that reliably measured out equal lengths of yarn, making a "pop" noise when the right length of yarn had been spun out. Grueling work needing its own tune cerca 1620. One can imagine them humming it as they worked, just over 200 years before the publish date shown in this article.

A dead heat with Ravel's "Bolero" as possibly the world's most romantic and elegant tango composition? I had no idea, but now its origin (and even the tune played by the toy Jack-In-the-Box I had as a child, makes perfect sense. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Danshawen (talk • contribs) 11:42, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

1910 Fruitgum Co.
Perhaps the pop-rock version of the American group 1910 Fruitgum Co. could or should be added? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQp4qFjRmfM Harjasusi (talk) 07:27, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

Neverhood
Is it notable that the game The Neverhood uses the song's tune quite extensively in a sequence with a monster known as the Weasel in game? Lemon Demon (talk) 10:51, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Another entry for Cultural Influence?
I was looking at the entry, and I remembered something. There's an early scene in The Godfather II (at the big party on the occasion of his infant son's first-communion party) where Michael Corleone has a business meeting with Frankie Petangeli. In another, more comic scene at the party, Petangeli is trying to get the hired band to play some Italian folk music in 6:8 time, suggesting to them the rhythm the tunes should be played in. The band members don't know any Italian melodies and wind up simply slipping into the familiar 6:8 tune "Pop Goes the Weasel" (much to the Petangeli's frustration).Joel Russ (talk) 04:20, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

"Pop! goes the weasel" goes Jazz
The great pianist Sonny Clark quotes this tune in his piece "Cool Struttin'". He changes the last note of the phrase and it sounds very funny! You can find it on his album that is also named "Cool Struttin'" from 1958. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.7.130.99 (talk) 21:32, 18 May 2010 (UTC)
 * That entire album is a masterpiece: Cool Struttin'. Quotes a-plenty, in fact: Martinevans123 (talk) 22:41, 23 November 2014 (UTC) ... but I wouldn't say that particular quote was that notable!

Possible Theory
I think the weasel got tired of the monkey chasing him, so he turned around and shot him. thats the "pop goes the weasel" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.209.30.108 (talk) 19:21, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

¶ An October 1997 episode of NYPD BLUE had a subplot concerned with the meaning of this lyric and the theory that "pop" meant "shoot". It was not resolved. My own opinion is that the lyric probably predates the availability of handguns. I am inclined to think either it means that the weasel lost its temper (as in "popped its cork") or this is cockney slang for pawning one's coat. Sussmanbern (talk) 18:17, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

Heads Up!
I'm putting this up the top in case anyone is still watching this page. This article is a mishmash of crap. If anybody who has complained or commented here have any actual information to add to it, now would be a good time. At the moment it's so speculative as to be worthless, and I want to pare it back. pablo hablo. 21:17, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

I took this as fair warning to anyone with serious objections. I have cleaned up the article, taking into account the widespread concerns below. The only unsubstantiated section left are some of the American lyrics. It would be could if a reliable source can be found.--Sabrebd (talk) 22:21, 14 April 2009 (UTC)


 * I Found 9 G hits for the "good old turtley song" crap, all of them copied from Wikipedia. That seems to be completely fabricated.  Of course, we could wind up in the position of Wikipedia being the source of something that goes viral and then self-cites.  I'm putting this note here so someone can find a good reference for that verse.  If not, I'm going to delete it.


 * I concur on how bad this page is generally. I added a reference to some verses, but I didn't quite code the cite right.  It's there.  I'll see if I can get that fixed, but feel free meantime.Mzmadmike (talk) 12:26, 1 September 2009 (UTC)


 * This has been up here for a while. I suggest we remove all of the lyrics that do not have reliable citations.--Sabrebd (talk) 15:38, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

This page is possibly the worst I've ever read on Wikipedia. It's been the same since 2009?!! Wow. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Codeye (talk • contribs) 01:08, 18 January 2018 (UTC)


 * I worked on this article as part of the September 2022 copy editor drive. The text is cleaner and it now has sources. There lyrics now have references and are used more selectively. The big issue:  I found that the history section of article was essentially plagiarized. This sectioned looked like original research (which was a problem) because the writer found primary sources such as period newspapers or sheet music to cite instead of referencing the article they were copying. Obviously, the original author who looked at the primary sources and reached the conclusion being used should have been credited. At first, I thought the source article was written using Wikipedia, but closer examination showed proved it to be the the original. As it stands, the words of this article are now not the same as this source which is now listed in the references. However, the the order of the text is pretty much a clone, except for the few new items I inserted. If I were a high school English teacher, I would still think it was too much like the source material, but it will pass for Wikipedia. Everyone, please use the reference options above to find new sources that can be inserted into the article. It sill needs help! Rublamb (talk) 17:04, 17 September 2022 (UTC)