A Singing Game: A Personal History of "When I Was a Baby"

A Singing Game: A Personal History of "When I Was a Baby" examines a series of variants of the classic singing game. "When I Was a Baby," like other traditional singing games, is based around a verse or rhyme paired with a set of movements. This singing game was made up by children and passed down by classmates, siblings, and friends to other children over a period of at least one hundred and fifty years. Jeanne Pitre Soileau traces "When I Was a Baby" through its many permutations, from its earliest appearance in folklore to variations uploaded to YouTube and introduces the varied folklorists who collected it through its history. As the years go by, the anonymous child poets who keep it alive, keen observers of change, spice it up with new vocabulary, new pantomimes, and incorporate into it more piquant social commentary. Part folklore study, part memoir, A Singing Game also explores Soileau’s journey of becoming, through trial and error, a specialist in south Louisiana child lore. Altogether, A Singing Game is an important addition to the children’s folklore canon.