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Three Six Nine

Three, six, nine, the goose drank wine, / The monkey chewed tobacco on the street car line…

ActionsLong rope

Three, six, nine, the goose drank wine,
The monkey chewed tobacco on the street car line.
The line broke, the monkey got choked,
And they all went to heaven in a little row boat,
Clap-Clap! Clap-Clap!

How to play

The skipper claps on "Clap-Clap!" without missing a jump.

Where this rhyme comes from

Earliest record
by 1927
Sung in
US, UK (London), Ireland
Roud number
18987

The Ballad Index's earliest text is from Arthur Huff Fauset's 1927 collection in the Journal of American Folklore. The Opies (1985) and Abrahams (1969) also list it. Some American memories of the 'street car line' version go back to the 1920s, and it later became famous through Shirley Ellis's 'The Clapping Song' (1965).

Sources: Traditional Ballad Index (balladindex.org), 'Three, Six, Nine'; Fauset, Journal of American Folklore 40 (1927), p.293 (cited by the Ballad Index); Opie, The Singing Game (1985), p.135 (cited); Abrahams, Jump-Rope Rhymes (1969), no. 412 (cited).

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