John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt
|
|
John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt is a traditional children's song of obscure origin. Its lyrics are:
- John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt,
- His name is my name too.
- Whenever we go out,
- The people always shout,
- "There goes John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt."
- Dah dah dah, dah dah, dah dah,
- John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt,
- His name... [repeat ad infinitum]
Variations include:
- "Pickle-" in place of "Jingle"
- "That's my" for "His name is my"
- "I go" or "He goes" for "we go"
- "Nah" or "Yah" (perhaps spelled "Ja" in German or Scandinavian manner) for "Dah"
The song is frequently sung by pre-teen children at communal outings such as long bus rides and Boy Scout or Girl Scout outings. The mock-German (or perhaps mock-Scandinavian) name celebrated in the song suggests that some English speakers still find longer northern-European names to be inherently funny words; compare the famous piece of faxlore in which English words are deformed to form a pseudo-German warning text.
Part of the appeal of the song seems to be its infinite loop, presenting the opportunity to turn a potentially intolerably long wait into an informal psychological experiment with the idea of infinitude and the infinite-loop motif. Cf. The Song that Never Ends.