Knick Knack Paddy Whack

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My brain hasn’t short-circuited. This refers to a children’s song. @JohnRoberts and I had an interesting discussion. It was about songs with lyrics sometimes even annoying which you listen to and they stay stuck in your mind. It reminded me first of a time in my teens in the mid-1970s when I listened to music all the time. There were a couple of radio stations which kept repeating the most popular songs of that time. There were times when I went to bed and after turning off the radio I could still hear certain songs in my head. In my childhood in grade school when I was 6 or 7 we had music lessons. They didn’t make us play instruments but we had to learn the lyrics of children’s songs and sing them. One such song was called “The Old Man” along with such nonsense lyrics like knick knack paddy whack. These would stick in my little head and at times I would feel like “paddy whacking” someone. I had double trouble in my little life because I went to grade school from Monday through Friday and to Latvian school on Saturdays. There we were also taught songs in Latvian and Latvian folk songs about bears seeking honey and buzzing bees. Between the paddy whacks and the bears and the bees I sometimes thought I would lose my little mind. It got rather confusing but as you see I made it through all of the singing and perhaps even enjoyed myself. I have included “The Old Man” here and so let’s sing together first verse – This old man, he played one, He played knick-knack on my thumb. With a knick-knack, paddy whack, Give a dog a bone, This old man came rolling home. http://www.lyricsondemand.com/miscellaneouslyrics/childsongslyrics/thisoldmanknickknackpaddywhacklyrics.html