Rambling Rhodes

Rain

It's raining
It's pouring
The old man is snoring
He went to bed
And bumped his head
And he couldn't get up in the morning

It's been raining like all holy hell over the past couple of weeks, even after some doom and gloomers back in April were predicting drought. I don't mind rain, I guess, so long as it doesn't intrude on my weekends, which of course it has. Although, Melissa and I did manage to do a couple of rollerblading treks over the weekend that exceeded the 30 mile mark, which means my legs are jelly.

During one of our sojourns, we did get rained on a tad, and that stupid little childhood rhyme entered my head, and I started chanting it in a goofy little voice. And, I never really realized what a nonsensical bit of weirdness it actually is. Does anyone know the genesis of that rhyme? Perhaps I should do a Google on it. . .

Huh. Interesting. I just found out that it's followed by:

Rain, rain, go away;
Come again another day;
Little Johnny wants to play.

Little Johnny's an impatient little bastard, I think. Here you have an old man who bumped his head, and apparently he can't even get out of bed due to a massive brain hemorrhage of some sort, and yet all Little Johnny can think of is getting outside to play. "Sorry, gramps, but I want to get out there and play. Screw your old wrinkled ass."

Anyway. . .

Well, now this is interesting. This site says the old man actually has a cold in his head, rather than having bumped it, which is less violent and worrisome, I suppose:

It's raining, it's pouring,
The Old Man is snoring
He went to bed with a cold in his head,
And he didn't get up until morning.
Rain, rain, go away,
Little Girl wants to play.

And, be sure to notice, it's now Little Girl wants to play, rather than Little Johnny. I'm not sure what kind of feminist manifesto may be going on there, but I'd like to see Little Johnny and Little Girl duke it out.

Here, of course, we're led to believe that the old man has a serious drinking problem, and apparently the sun shines while it's raining. Also be sure to notice that his snoring inexplicably makes the buttons on his Chinese shirt spin.

Finally, I guess it was inevitable that I'd eventually come across a blog that mentioned the nursery rhyme. That blog also has pictures of a bra, which I think is kind of cool.

Unfortunately, I still don't know the genesis of that damned rhyme, or what it really even means.

Why, yes, I am slacking at work during a teleconference meeting. Why do you ask?

Posted by Ryan at June 2, 2004 11:06 AM