The Chattanooga Choo Choo and Three Little Fishes

Back in the good old days, when music had some rhyme or reason to it, you could listen to the best of it on the radio on Your Hit Parade where some great songs jingled forth that were lots of fun to listen to and to sing.

Your Hit Parade was on radio for 15 years before the television version. Read about the show at Your Hit Parade http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/Y/htmlY/yourhitpara/yourhitpara.htm

Actually, some of the songs were downright silly.

The Chattanooga Choo Choo

One song was Chattanooga Choo Choo performed in the movie Sun Valley Serenade. Of course, Sun Valley is just up the road from here.

At our faithful site http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chattanooga_Choo_Choo you can read more about the Chattanooga Choo Choo then you want to know.

I quote: The song was written by the team of Mack Gordon and Harry Warren while traveling on the Southern Railway's "Birmingham Special" train. The song tells the story of traveling from New York City to Chattanooga. However, the inspiration for the song was a small, wood-burning steam locomotive of the 2-6-0 type which belonged to the Cincinnati Southern Railroad, which is now part of the Norfolk Southern Railway system.

You can chug down south and see the Chattanooga Choo Choo as described in the above article. Go to this site for more detailed travel information: http://www.fabuloustravel.com/usa/chattanooga/choochoo.html

You can download the song for free at http://www.ez-tracks.com/getsong-songid-32179.html. I didnt download it so I dont know if there is any catch to downloading it. Downloaders beware!

The lyrics are at several places on the net. One is http://www.lyricsdownload.com/nana-mouskouri-chattanooga-choo-choo-lyrics.html There is an annoying popup at this site which my blocker did not block. Just click on the X and it will go away. Here is the start of the song:

"Pardon me boy, is that the Chattanooga Choo Choo?

Track 29! Boy, you can give me a shine"

The Three Little Fishes

The lyrics to this catchy tune found at http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Academy/3225/Traditional/Three_Little_Fishes.txt goes like this:

In an iddy biddy pool
Swam three little fishes
And a momma fishy too!
Swim, said the Momma,
Swim as fast as you can!
And they swam and they swam
Right over that dam

Boop Boop Diddim Daddum Waddum Choo!
Boop Boop Diddim Daddum Waddum Choo!
Boop Boop Diddim Daddum Waddum Choo!
And they swam and they swam right over the dam!

The song, now in public domain, was written in 1939 by Josephine Judson Carringer. We read the following about her at http://familytreemaker.genealogy.com/users/w/a/r/Robert-Warren/GENE1-0067.html She had hazel eyes and brown hair. She was musically gifted and highly intellegent. She started college when she was 16 yrs old. She wrote the song "Three Little Fishes" with Betty Lynn Kirk, her sorority sister at the University of Tennessee in the late 1930s. They sold the song for $200.

I had one heck of a time finding the above information on Josephine Judson Carringer.

For the lyrics to other silly songs go to http://tinyurl.com/qyxw3

copyright2006 John T. Jones, Ph.D.