Coochie Coochie Coochie Coo. You still hear it from time to time in movies and pop song lyrics. Check the online dictionaries and they'll tell you it's a nonsense term of unknown origin used in speaking with babies. Or is it? I was recently rummaging through old songs and came across the 1925 hit, "Five Foot Two, Eyes of Blue." The high point of the chorus has the lyrics "But could she love; Could she woo; Could she, could she, could she coo; Has anybody seen my girl?" Anyone in the late twenties to early thirties hearing "could she, could she, could she coo," would immediately have recognized the reference. It must have caught on as a line that parents, relatives, and even total strangers would be compelled to sing to a baby. Well, I think we have a winner. Bing Crosby recorded Five Foot Two as late as the mid sixties, but Ringo Star had a song a few years later with the lyrics, "Coochie coochie coochie coo," so it appears the original meaning was lost to the rock and roll generation. Do you have any bits of forgotten knowledge recovered from the sands of time? Maybe an obscure saying, an old gadget, or a photograph that everyone recognized but no one know the origin of? Post it here.
Nothing to contribute at the moment, but this has the makings of a fun thread to follow. Very cool, BigMike!
Early strongman performers sometimes dressed in capes and what was essentially colored long underwear. This look inspired the costume for the 1938 debut of Superman.
Right up until the industrial revolution, it was common for people's nighttime routine to be a "first sleep," followed by a period of activity in the middle of the night, anywhere from 30 minutes to several hours, followed by a "second sleep" until morning. This was typical human behavior for thousands of years, only ending in the last hundred or so.