John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt

John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt is a traditional children's song of obscure origin. Its lyrics are:

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:John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt,

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:His name is my name too.

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:Whenever we go out

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:The people always shout,

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:"There goes John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt."

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:Dah dah dah, dah dah, dah dah,

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:John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt,

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:His name...

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Variations include:

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• "Pickle-" in place of "Jingle"
• "That's my" for "His name is my"
• "I go" or "He goes" for "we go"
• "Nah" or "Yah" (perhaps spelled "Ja" in German or Scandinavian manner) for "Dah"

The song is frequently sung by pre-teen children at communal outings such as long bus rides and Boy Scout or Girl Scout outings. The mock-German (or perhaps mock-Scandinavian) name celebrated in the song suggests that some English speakers still find longer northern-European names to be inherently funny words; compare the famous piece of faxlore in which English words are deformed to form a pseudo-German warning text.

Related Topics:
Bus - Boy Scout - Girl Scout - German - Scandinavian - Inherently funny word - Faxlore - English

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Part of the appeal of the song seems to be its infinite loop, presenting the opportunity to turn a potentially intolerably long wait into an informal psychological experiment with the idea of infinitude and the infinite-loop motif. Cf. The Song That Never Ends.

Related Topics:
Infinite loop - Infinitude - Infinite-loop motif - The Song That Never Ends

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