I was reminded of this song in early 2019. My mom had just passed away in late 2018, and I got to thinking one day about how my parents used to sing this song to my brother and I when we were kids. There were two verses that I could remember, so I was curious to try and learn the origins of the song and if there were more lyrics than just the bits that I knew.

    What I found was a mish-mash of stories, educated guesses, and occasionally some interesting insight into the origins of the song. It's clear the song goes way back — likely more than 100 years, with WWI soldiers singing a salty version, "Do your balls hang low?"

     It probably goes back further than that though — into the mid or late 1800s. The melody is clearly a take on a song from the early 1800s called "Turkey in the Straw."  No clear author of "Do Your Ears Hang Low" can be identified, although it's been speculated that it goes back to a song by George Washington Dixon in 1838 called "Zip Coon." It may be the song was just passed around over the years and really no one is the official author.

    The first verse, "Do Your Ears Hang Low," is the one that is most common and has very few iterations. I've only seen three with very slight differences. The second verse, most commonly "Do Your Ears Hang High," has multiple versions with different words used, but basically the same theme. Then of course there are dozens (at least) of people who tried their hand at writing more verses to the song with varying degrees of success.

    My issue was I didn't like how most of the song versions seemed very overly simplistic — taking out more interesting words and phrases and replacing them with simpler ones. I can understand doing this for small children, but in my opinion this not the best approach. Having interesting lyrics is what will stimulate kids imaginations and their sense of cleverness and wit — even for small children who tend to be smarter and more aware than they're given credit.

    The best example is in verse two. The way it was sung to us included the line, "Can you semaphore your neighbor, with a minimum of labor?" Now most kids don't know what semaphore is. Probably most adults too. What you can learn though is that semaphore was traditionally sailors using signal flags — waving them back, forth, up, down, to signal to eachother. In midieval times armies would build these large wooden contraptions with flags and balloons on them, each controlled by pulleys. These would be pulled to signal the army what to do next as verbal communication to a large army was just not possible back then. Semaphore can also include other forms of nonverbal communication like airport staff that use lighted flairs to direct airplanes into the hangers.

    Once you know this it creates imagery of your ears going back, forth, up, down, out wide, or waving back as if to say, "Come on back. Come on Back." More clever than simple words that may not create any interesting visuals at all.

   So, I started with the two verses that were sung to my brother and I when we were kids and tried to add other verses that I thought might be funny or clever — other things that you could say about your ears.

    I ended up with eight new verses to go along with the original two. I intentionally avoided doing verses like "Do your ears make you fly, like a bird up in the sky?" I wanted to be challenged to do better and different verses. I like where this version ended up and stopped when I basically ran out of cleverness. I hope you enjoy this version. Use it as much or as little as you want in your classroom or with your kids. Just please don't use it to make any personal financial gains. I do actually own the copyright on this version, and don't want to have to enforce it.

    Please enjoy, and use the "Contact" to send me any messages.

   

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