"Pretty Little Dutch Girl" is a children's nursery rhyme, clapping game and jump-rope rhyme. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 12986.
Maps, Directions, and Place Reviews
Lyrics
The lyrics of the song vary considerably. British versions of this rhyme differ significantly, perhaps because many of the allusions in the rhyme were unknown to British children at the time. Common versions include:
Variation 1
Variation 2
Variation 3
Variation 4
Variation 5 (Western Canada, 1960s)
Variation 6
Variation 7
Variation 8
Variation 9 (Northwest England, 2010s)
I am a pretty little Dutch girl, As pretty as can be, And all the boys around the block are crazy over me, me, me. My boyfriend's name is Chaim, He comes from yerushalayim, With a pickle up his nose and three black toes, And this is how my story goes. One day when I was walking, I saw my boyfriend talking To a pretty little girl with a strawberry curl And this is what he said to her: I L-O-V-E love you, I K-I-S-S kiss you. And he fell in the lake, And he swallowed a snake, And he came out with a bellyache.
Variation 11 (Long Island, NY, 1970s - a clapping game) I am a pretty little Dutch girl, As pretty as pretty can be, And all the boys around my block go crazy over me. My boyfriend's name is Larry He comes from Cincinnati With his forty-two toes and a pickle in his nose And this is what he said to me: "I L-O-V-E love you I K-I-S-S kiss you I K-I-S-S kiss you on your F-A-C-E, F-A-C-E, F-A-C-E, face, face, face!"
"Variation 12"(from Australia)
I am a pretty little Dutch girl, as pretty as pretty can be be be. And all the boys in the baseball team, go crazy over me me me. My boyfriends name is Steven, He comes from New Zealand. With five fat toes and a pimple on his nose, And this is how my story goes. One day when I was walking, I heard my boyfriend talking. To a pretty little girl with strawberry curls, and this is what he said to her: "I LOVE love you and I KISS kiss you" So jump in the lake and swallow a snake, and come out with a belly ache.
Cute Curls Video
Story told within the song
The rhyme (and at least some of its variants) tells the story of an extremely beautiful girl (of Dutch descent, hence the song's title) who is popular with boys (particularly around the neighborhood, block or the whole town) and has a rather unattractive boyfriend; some versions mention that the boyfriend dumps the pretty Dutch girl in favor of an even prettier girl. The Dutch girl is often depicted from illustration to illustration wearing traditional Dutch clothing, complete with ribbon-adorned long braids in her hair, wooden shoes and (occasionally exaggerated) Dutch cap.
Origins and distribution
The origins of the rhyme are obscure. The tune of the song is similar to "A Sailor Went to Sea" and "Miss Suzie Had A Steamboat" (though some notes are removed to account for the double-syllable words "pretty" and "little", and some notes are added in). The earliest record found so far is for New York around 1940. It seems to have spread over the USA by the 1950s and reached Britain in 1959, where it was taken up very quickly across the country to become one of the most popular skipping rhymes among girls.
Use in children's media
In the Wee Sing Video Series video Grandpa's Magical Toys, the song is represented and sung by a blonde-haired Barbie-like doll in Dutch traditional costume aptly named "Dutch Girl" (played by Jacqueline "Jacque" Drew) that enjoys jump-roping and is very concerned about the red ribbons tying her long braids together; she even gets very emotional when those ribbons come undone (she prefers them to be straight), but the three shrunken children in the movie (named Peter, David and Sara) talk her out of her moping and convince her that her then-straight ribbons aren't the reason why she played with them. Convinced, she then wears her ribbons undone throughout the rest of the movie, and her dress seem to be falling apart by the movie's end. She even says that Pretty Little Dutch Girl is "my [her] song" when she is introduced to the three kids, and she also has a tendency to prattle. (5:01)
In the Australian animated film Dot and the Kangaroo, two hopping mice near the end of the waterhole scene sang a song about a bushgirl who is pretty to the tune of Pretty Little Dutch Girl after they see Dot touching the bandicoot and scaring it and made the bandicoot jump in the waterhole where Dot laughs on what she did and the hopping mice laugh as well, so they did the same thing Dot did. One of the hopping mice pushed the other one into the waterhole.
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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