Over this past weekend, Oliver my almost-five-year-old kept repeating an all-too-familiar mantra that bordered on the maddening. Jingle Bells, Batman Smells, Robin Laid an Egg!..... recited giddily between bursts of giggles .... the Batmobile lost its wheel and The Joker got away! Oliver would then improvise new lyrics or assumed/misheard variations over same and repeat ad nauseum. It made for a lengthy forty-eight hours.
It got me thinking, though. I certainly remember being similarly amused by roughly the same inane ditty when I was five years old myself, and that point really struck me. How do these songs keep perpetuating? It's not like anyone's writing them down or anything. Obviously, they're being passed down by word-of-mouth from generation to generation like fables, myths or, say, druidic spells. To this same end, I found this compelling discussion thread devoted to divining the origin of "Jingle Bells, Batman Smells." If I had to guess myself, I'd suggest the 1960s. Any ideas?
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