The Hokey Cokey, as it is still known in the United Kingdom, Ireland, some parts of Australia, and the Caribbean, (now known as Hokey Pokey in the U.S and Canada), is a campfire song and participation dance with a distinctive accompanying tune and lyric structure. It is well-known in English-speaking countries. It originates in a British folk dance, with variants attested as early as 1826. The song and accompanying dance peaked in popularity as a music hall song and novelty dance in the mid-1940s in the UK. The song became a chart hit twice in the 1980s. The first UK hit was by the Snowmen, which peaked at UK No. 18 in 1981.
Despite several claims of a recent invention, numerous variants of the song exist with similar dances and lyrics dating back to the 19th century. One of the earlier variants, with a very similar dance to the modern one, is found in Robert Chambers' Popular Rhymes of Scotland from 1842.[2] The words there are given as:
A later variant of this song is the Shaker song "Hinkum-Booby", which had more similar lyrics to the modern song and was published in Edward Deming Andrews' A gift to be simple in 1940: (p. 42).
A song rendered ("with appropriate gestures") by two sisters from Canterbury, England while on a visit to Bridgewater, N.H. in 1857 start an "English/Scottish ditty" thus:
As the song continues, the "left hand" is put in, then the "right foot," then the "left foot," then "my whole head." . . . [I]t does not seem to have been much used in Shaker societies.
A version known as "Ugly Mug" is described in 1872:
A version from c. 1891 from the town of Golspie in Scotland was published by Edward W. B. Nicholson:
In the book English Folk-Rhymes, published 1892, a version of the song originating from Sheffield is given:
Some early versions of this song thus show a marked resemblance to the modern song Looby Loo, and the songs have been described as having a common origin.
In the book Charming Talks about People and Places, published circa 1900, there is a song with music on page 163 entitled "Turn The Right Hand In". It has 9 verses, which run thus: "Turn the right hand in, turn the right hand out, give your hands a very good shake, and turn your body around." Additional verses include v2. left hand...; v3. both hands...; v4. right foot...; v5. left foot...; v6. both feet...; v7. right cheek...; v8. left cheek...; and, v9. both cheeks... The tune is not the same as the later popular version of the Hokey Cokey but the verse is more similar as it states to "turn your body around." No author or composer was credited.
In recent times various other claims about the origins of the song have arisen, though they are all contradicted by the publication history. According to one such account, in 1940, during the Blitz in London, a Canadian officer suggested to Al Tabor, a British bandleader of the 1920s–1940s, that he write a party song with actions similar to "Under the Spreading Chestnut Tree". The inspiration for the song's title that resulted, "The Hokey Pokey", supposedly came from an ice cream vendor whom Tabor had heard as a boy, calling out, "Hokey pokey penny a lump. Have a lick make you jump". A well-known lyricist/songwriter/music publisher of the time, Jimmy Kennedy, reneged on a financial agreement to promote and publish it, and finally, Tabor settled out of court, giving up all rights to the number.
In 2008, an Anglican cleric, Canon Matthew Damon, Provost of Wakefield Cathedral, West Yorkshire, claimed that the dance movements were a parody of the traditional Catholic Latin Mass. Up until the reforms of Vatican II, the priest performed his movements facing the altar rather than the congregation, who could not hear the words very well, nor understand the Latin, nor clearly see his movements. At one point the priest would say "Hoc est corpus meum" Latin for "This is My body" (a phrase that has also been suggested as the origin of the similar-sounding stereotypical magician's phrase "hocus-pocus"). That theory led Scottish politician Michael Matheson in 2008 to urge police action "against individuals who use it [the song and dance] to taunt Catholics". Matheson's claim was deemed ridiculous by fans from both sides of the Old Firm (the rival Glasgow football teams Celtic and Rangers) and calls were made on fans' forums for both sides to join together to sing the song on 27 December 2008 at Ibrox Stadium. Close relatives of Jimmy Kennedy and Al Tabor have publicly stated their recollections of the origin and meaning of the Hokey Cokey, and have denied its connection to the Mass. Those accounts differ, but they are all contradicted by the fact that the song existed and was published decades before its supposed composition in the 1940s.
In Australia, the dance may be called the "hokey pokey" or the "hokey cokey." It was a hit for Johnny Chester & The Chessmen in 1961.
In Denmark, it's mostly performed in the British style of the dance, it is known as the "boogie woogie"
In Germany it is performed mainly in the carnival in a variation of the British style of the dance, it is known as "Rucki-Zucki".
In Mexico it was released as a commercial recording by Tatiana (singer) as "Hockey-Pockey".
In New Zealand, in the North Island, the dance is usually known as the "hokey tokey", or the "hokey cokey" because hokey pokey is the usual term for honeycomb toffee. In the South Island it's just The Hokey Pokey.
In The United Kingdom, it's known as the "hokey cokey" or the "hokey kokey", the song and accompanying dance peaked in popularity as a music hall song and novelty dance in the mid-1940s in Britain.
There is a claim of authorship by the British/Irish songwriter Jimmy Kennedy, responsible for the lyrics to popular songs such as the wartime "We're Going to Hang out the Washing on the Siegfried Line" and the children's song "Teddy Bears' Picnic". Sheet music copyrighted in 1942 and published by Campbell Connelly & Co Ltd, agents for Kennedy Music Co Ltd, styles the song as "the Cokey Cokey".
In the 1973 Thames Television documentary, May I Have the Pleasure?, about the Hammersmith Palais de Danse, Lou Preager comments on how his was the first band to record the 'Okey Cokey'.
EMI Gold released a Monsta Mash CD featuring the "Monsta Hokey Cokey" written and produced by Steve Deakin-Davies of "The Ambition Company".
The song was used by comedian Bill Bailey during his "Part Troll" tour, however, it was reworked by Bailey into a style of the German electronic group Kraftwerk, including quasi-German lyrics and Kraftwerk's signature robotic dance moves.
The comedy act Ida Barr, a fictional East End pensioner who mashes up music hall songs with rap numbers, almost always finishes her shows with the hokey cokey, performed over a thumping RnB backing. Ida Barr is performed by a British comedian Christopher Green.
In the United States and Canada, Known as the "hokey pokey", it became popular in the US in the 1950s. Its originator in the US is debatable:
- Larry LaPrise, Charles Macak, and Tafit Baker of the musical group the Ram Trio, better known as the Sun Valley Trio, recorded the song in 1948 and it was released in 1950. They have generally been credited with creating this novelty dance as entertainment for the ski crowd at the Sun Valley, Idaho resort.
- However, two club musicians from Scranton, Pennsylvania, Robert Degen and Joseph P. Brier, had previously copyrighted a very similar song, "The Hokey Pokey Dance", in 1944. (One account says that copyright was granted in 1946.) According to Degan's son in The New York Times, Degan and Brier wrote the song while playing for the summer at a resort near the Delaware Water Gap. Degan resided at Richmond Place Rehabilitation and Health Center in Lexington, Kentucky, until he died on November 23, 2009, aged 104.
- Degen and Brier, who died in 1991, sued the members of the Ram Trio, and several record companies and music publishers for copyright infringement, demanding $200,000 in damages and $1 for each record of the LaPrise "Hokey Pokey". The suit was settled out of court. LaPrise later sold the rights to his version to country-western music star Roy Acuff's Nashville publishing company, Acuff-Rose Music; that company was sold to Sony/ATV Music Publishing in 2002.
- A competing authorship claim is made by or on behalf of British bandleader Gerry Hoey from around 1940, under the title "The Hoey Oka".
In 1953, Ray Anthony's big band recording of the song turned it into a nationwide sensation. The distinctive vocal was by singer Jo Ann Greer, who simultaneously sang with the Les Brown band and dubbed the singing voices for such film stars as Rita Hayworth, Kim Novak, June Allyson, and Esther Williams. (She also charted with Anthony later the same year with the song "Wild Horses".)
In 1978, Mike Stanglin produced a "skating version" of the Hokey Pokey, for use in skating rinks
To download the easy alphanotes sheet music, look here.
Enjoy!
You put your right hand in,
You put your right hand out,
You put your right hand in,
And you shake it all about,
You do the hokey pokey
and you turn yourself around
That what it's all about.
2) left hand
3) right foot
4) left foot
5) head
6) butt
7) whole self
