He Played One…

I’m going to start a new feature on this blog called, “The Random Tally Whacker”. The premise is very simple and hopefully the result will be somewhat informative for my (many) readers. The idea behind “The Random Tally Whacker” is that I’m going to take certain phrases, lyrics, sayings and quotations out of popular culture and dissect them faster than it took me to puke in high school from seeing the innards of my dissected frog.

For my first ever “Tally Whacker” feature I’m going to use the “chorus” to the popular children’s song “This Old Man” (you know… the part that goes, “with a knick-knack, paddy-whack, gives his dog a bone). I’m not even sure what this song means but in the song a musically inclined old man starts playing “knick-knack” on all sorts of things (thumbs, shoes, sticks ect.). I’m only assuming he is musical because the songs says he’s “playing”… again with some assumptions I think the “knick-knacking” is a sort of beat that he plays, who knows maybe the old man used to be a percussionist in some old-timey jug band. I also like to think that the song would be completely different if instead of playing “knick-knack” the lyrics went something like this… “this old man, he played one, he turned “nick-nacks” out of my thumb, although I’m not entirely sure that this couldn’t be the case because old people really love their nick-nacks. But if this were true then not only would children have to worry about “The Pied Piper” and Catholic priests before bed, they’d have “This Old Man” to keep them up at night in worry.

BUT the most interesting part of the song is what comes next. He plays “knick-knack” then “paddy-whack”, so I ask you, what the hell is a paddy-whack? I understand that a “knick-knack” might be a type of percussion or figurine, but I have no idea about this “paddy-whack”. It’s NON-SENSE! I know the song is old and maybe I’m missing some type of old-timey connotation (like the time I thought “Hoovervilles” was the name of a store to buy vacuum cleaners) but I don’t think so… I think that this song has been falsely translated and lost it’s meaning after being passed down through the generations.

This Old Man, He Played A Billion, He Played Knick-Knack ON THAT Pigeon.

What do I think a “paddy-whack” is? Well, it could possibly be that he played “knick-knack”, with his patented Patty whack (true if the old man was Irish and his signature beat was called a “Patty whack” after his name Pat) and then he gives the dog a bone. OR it could be that he played “knick-knack”, works at McDonald’s and has to work behind the grill whacking burger pattys”, only to go home and feed his dog a bone, which hopefully the bones aren’t very expensive because he gives his dog a lot of bones in the song and if he works at Mickey D’s… he’s probably only making minimum wage.

Those are some possible interpretations of what I think this non-sense means. My only question to end this is that if the dog he gives a bone to is close enough (in proximity) to the old man at the end of the song…  how come he never “knick-knacks” or “patty-whacks” (“patty-whack” this time meaning an Irish Mafia hit) his dog, because in doing so he wouldn’t always have to give him so many bones…

Well, there you have it… the first ever installation of “The Random Tally Whacker”, I know I thought I said it would be informative, but after scanning this over… it’s been anything but. So I’m sorry if you were looking for a little insight or existentialism that arises in some children’s songs and poetry. I’ll try to do a little better next time. ORRRRRRREEEEE… if you have any suggestions about lyrics, quotes, phrases, colors, historical figures, poems, or fruit related questions, plug them into my comments and I’ll be happy to get around to them and Randomly Tally Whack the Shit Out of It.

The End. Game Over. AND most importantly, Winners Don’t Use Drugs… (unless it’s a drug taking contest, then there really is no winner, just a group of losers).

~ by Rand McTally on July 12, 2008.