Of Weasels and Monkeys and Such

Driving home today, Mr. Ginley started singing "Pop Goes the Weasel."

It was the American version, about the monkey chasing the weasel all around the mulberry bush. He wondered aloud why the monkey thought it was fun.  And why a mulberry bush?

Having no answers, but knowing exactly where to go, I consulted my old friend, The Google.

As it happens, Pop Goes the Weasel is a very old chestnut, indeed. The music came first, then the words. It was quite the dance sensation of the 1850s. There are many variations on the lyrics, none of which make any kind of sense. But there is no end of people trying to do just that.

Theories include the "pop" being a noise made by a spinner's tool, that "weasel" is a Cockney reference to one's gullet, and that the phrase means to pawn a coat, the monkey being a rent collector.

There is no definitive explanation for the words, which are very different depending upon which side of the ocean you reside.

All I know for sure is that the song made the Three Stooges' Curly go crazy every time he heard it.

Also, that the tune was a popular favorite for jack-in-the-box toys of my generation, and that I would probably still jump every time that creepy clown lunged out of the box at the end of the last note.

There are lots of songs whose meanings are lost to the ages. Probably, they were sung in the throes of too much alcohol. And there will always be those folks who try to attribute some sinister meaning to them. (In this case, poverty, sweatshops and spending hard-earned wages in pubs.)

I can still remember when the song American Pie hit the airwaves in 1971. It was so deliciously cryptic, everyone was trying to decipher its meaning. When Don McLean made an appearance on some talk shown at the time, he cagily declined to say what it meant. Many speculated, with the most likely scenario being that American Pie was a ballad about the going-to-hell of popular music.

Don himself summed it up on a manuscript of the song, which was auctioned off a couple of years ago:

“Basically in American Pie things are heading in the wrong direction."

So, there you have it. One mystery solved, years after no one cared.

But we are still left with the enigma of the weasel, the monkey, the mulberry bush and the pop.

I'm proposing my own personal theory, thusly. The writer of the lyrics was obviously prescient. The monkey is Robert Mueller, the weasel is our current president, the mulberry bush is that country that Sarah Palin can see from her window, and the pop is an end to the insanity.

That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.