"Pop! Goes the Weasel" (Roud 5249) is a traditional old English song, a country dance, nursery rhyme, and singing game that emerged in the mid-19th century. The melody is often used in jack-in-the-box toys and is frequently played by ice cream trucks.
Origin In the early 1850s, Miller and Beacham of Baltimore published sheet music for "Pop goes the Weasel for Fun and Frolic". This is the oldest known source that pairs the name to this tune. Miller and Beacham's music was a variation of "The Haymakers", a tune dating back to the 1700s. Gow's Repository of the Dance Music of Scotland (1799 to 1820), included "The Haymakers" as a country dance or jig. One modern expert believes the tune, like most jigs, originated in the 1600s.
In June 1852, the boat Pop Goes The Weasel competed in the Durham Regatta. By December 1852, "Pop Goes The Weasel" was a popular social dance in England. A ball held in Ipswich on 13 December 1852 ended with "a country dance, entitled 'Pop Goes the Weasel', one of the most mirth inspiring dances which can well be imagined."
On 24 December 1852, an ad in the Birmingham Journal offered lessons in the "Pop Goes The Weasel" dance, described as a "highly fashionable Dance, recently introduced at her Majesty's and the Nobility's private soirees". On 28 December 1852, an advertisement in The Times promoted a publication that included "the new dance recently introduced with such distinguished success at the Court balls" and contained "the original music and a full explanation of the figures by Mons. E. Coulon". Eugène Coulon was a well-known dance-master. In January 1853, the Bath Chronicle featured an advertisement from dance master, Mr. T. B. Moutrie, for "instruction in the highly fashionable dances" including "Pop Goes the Weasel".
Sheet music dated 1853 at the British Library describes it as "An Old English Dance, as performed at Her Majesty's & The Nobilities Balls, with the Original Music". Also In 1853, American sheet music referred to it as "an old English Dance lately revived".
Originally, the dance was an instrumental jig except for the refrain "pop goes the weasel" which was sung or shouted as one pair of dancers moved under the arms of the other dancers. The British Library's 1853 tune is very similar to that used today but the only lyrics are "pop goes the weasel". The Library of Congress has similar sheet music with an arrangement by James W. Porter in 1853. Like its British counterpart, its only lyrics are "pop goes the weasel". Porter's version also describes the dance as taught at Mr. Sheldon's Academy in Philadelphia:FIGURES: Form in Two Lines – Top Couple Ballaneez, Four Bars – then Gallop down inside and back, Four Bars – take the next Lady, Hands Round Four Bars – then Two Bars back and (while all Sing Pop goes the Weasel) pass her under your arms to her Place – Repeat with the lady's Partner then Gallop down the inside and back, Four Bars – and down outside to the other end of the line, Four Bars, which finishes the Figure – The next couple follows, &c. &c.By 1854, Louis S. D. Rees "changed completely" the arrangement with "easy & brilliant variations". A modern music historian notes, "This bravura version introduces the theme as a jig, as in the original, but the variations are in and , much better for showing off fast fingerwork. No dancing to this one!"
The popular dance was performed on stage and in stage and dance halls.1853 newspaper ad: "CALDWELL's SOIREES DANSANTES ... where ... all the newest dances are danced, including 'Pop goes the Weasel' by 200 couples every evening ..." The Times (London, England), 20 June 1853, p. 13"At the Theatre Royal, Haymarket." The Times, (London, England), 19 April 1853, p. 6 By late 1854, lyrics were added to the well-known tune, with the first singing performance possibly at the Grecian Theatre."When some bad boys endeavored to teach him the words of the popular air known as "Pop goes the Weasel", it is a fact that Master Jones couldn't be brought to do it to any other tune than that of "Evening Hymn"..." The Times (London), 12 September 1854, p. 6. In 1855, The National Society for Promoting the Education of the Poor in England and Wales wrote that the song, commonly played by hand–organs on the streets, had "senseless words". In their monthly newsletter, the society referred to the song as "street music" on the level of "negro tunes", saying it was "contagious and pestilent". In another newsletter, the society wrote, "Worst of all.. almost every species of ribaldry and low wit has been rendered into rhyme to suit it.""School Music". The Monthly Paper of the National Society. 109: 270. December 1855 – via Google Books.
In 1856, a letter to The Morning Post read, "For many months, everybody has been bored to death with the eternal grinding of this ditty on street." Since at least the late 19th century, the nursery rhyme was used with a British children's game similar to musical chairs. The players sing the first verse while dancing around rings. There is always one ring less than the number of players. When the "pop goes the weasel" line is reached, the players rush to secure a ring. The player that fails to secure a ring is eliminated as a "weasel". There are succeeding rounds until the winner secures the last ring.
In America, the tune became a standard in minstrel shows, featuring additional verses that frequently covered politics. Charley Twigg published his minstrel show arrangement in 1855 with the refrain "Pop goes de weasel.".Twiggs, Charley. "Pop Goes the Weasel." New York: Berry and Gordon, 1855. Notated Music. via the Library of Congress.
Eugène Coulon
On 24 December 1852, the Gloucester Journal newspaper reported that "A new dance has been introduced by a Frenchman—it is called 'Pop goes the Weasel', and from the title should be a comical affair". That Frenchman was probably either Eugène Coulon or Louis-Antoine Jullien, as four days later in The Times, London, music publishers Jullien & Co. advertised "Pop goes the Weasel: the new dance recently introduced ...is now published with the original music and a full explanation of the figures, by Mons. E. Coulon."The Times London, Greater London, Dec 28, 1852, p. 10, Advertisement In a later advertisement George Thompson is named as the arranger of the music.Banbury Guardian, 3 February 1853
Adding support to Coulon's role is an advertisement from a dance teacher, Madame Catarina St. Louin, offering lessons in the "latest and most fashionable dances, including "Pop goes the Weasel", "La Tempéte", and "Coulon's Quadrille", by permission of M. Eugène Coulon, as lately introduced by him at Her Majesty's and the Nobility's Balls".Gateshead Observer – Saturday 05 February 1853
The Jullien & Co. publication with the original music arranged by George Thompson is the oldest known music for the dance. In it Coulon described Pop goes the Weasel "as a very old and a very animated English dance that has lately been revived among the higher classes of society", and as his instructions were soon copied by other music publishers, with and without attribution, he appears to have been the authority for the dance.
Lyrics British version The lyrics may have predated the dance as either a rhyme or the lyrics of another song dating to the 1600s. Regardless, there are many different versions of the lyrics. In England, most versions share the basic verse:
The most common additional verses are:
American variations When the song crossed the Atlantic in the 1850s, the British lyrics were still changing. In the United States, the most common lyrics are different and may have a separate origin. The following lyrics were printed in Boston in 1858:
The March 1860 issue of the Southern Literary Messenger published a new verse:
In New York in 1901, the opening lines were, "All around the chicken coop / The possum chased the weasel." By the mid-20th century, the standard United States version had replaced the "cobbler's bench" with a "mulberry bush":
Or the standard United States version had this line.
In 1994, the American Folklife Center documented a version of the song with sixteen verses.
Meaning and interpretations
Title There has been much speculation about the meaning of the phrase and song title, "Pop Goes the Weasel". Some say a weasel is a tailor's flat iron, silver-plate dishes, a dead animal, a hatter's tool, or a spinner's weasel.D. D. Volo, Family Life in Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-century America (Greenwood, 2006), p. 264. One writer notes, "Weasels do pop their heads up when disturbed and it is quite plausible that this was the source of the name of the dance."
Just like the dancers to this jig, the spinner's weasel revolves, but to measure the thread or yarn produced on a spinning wheel. Forty revolutions of most weasels produce of yarn or a skein. The weasel's wooden gears are designed to make a popping sound after the 40th revolution to tell the spinner that the skein is completed.Brown, Rachel, The Weaving, Spinning, and Dyeing Book. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1978. p. 240.
Iona and Peter Opie observed that no one seemed to know what the phrase meant at the height of the dance craze in the 1850s. It may just be a nonsensical phrase. However, one further explanation links the lyrics of the popular nursery rhyme to 1800s East London Cockney rhyming slang. In this dialect "weasel" relates to "weasel and stoat", or coat, and "pop" relates the "pop shop" or pawnbrokers shop. The rhyme describes someone running short of money purchasing rice and treacle (metaphor for life's essentials); "that's the way the money goes". Subsequently, this forces them to sell (pop) their coat (weasel) to the pawnbroker (pop shop).
First verse The first verse refers to "tuppenny rice" and "treacle" which are food. At the time, one pound of rice pudding cost twopence (pronounced tuppence). Treacle is an uncrystallized sugar syrup used as a topper to sweeten the rice pudding. A modern writer notes, it was "the cheapest and nastiest food" available to London's poor.
Some lyrics in the British version may originate with Cockney slang and rhyming slang. In the mid-19th century, "pop" was a well-known slang term for pawning something—and City Road had a well-known pawn establishment in the 1850s. In this Cockney interpretation, "weasel" is Cockney rhyming slang for "weasel and stoat" meaning "coat". Thus, to "pop the weasel" meant to pawn your coat. However, one author notes that the Cockney rhyming slang "weasel and stoat" was not used until the 1930s. Another early source says weasel was slang for silver-plate cups and dishes or anything of value that was pawnable.
In 1905, The London Globe and The New York Times published a story saying that a "weasel" was a coin purse made of weasel skin that closed with a "snap".
Second verse
The "Eagle" on City Road in the song's second verse may refer to a famous pub in London. The Eagle Tavern was on City Road, rebuilt as a music hall in 1825, and rebuilt in 1901 as a public house called The Eagle. As one writer concludes, "So the second verse says that visiting the Eagle causes one's money to vanish, necessitating a trip up the City Road to Uncle [the pawn shop] to raise some cash."
Today, The Eagle has the lyrics to this verse painted on a plaque on its façade.
Third verse In the third verse, the monkey may relate to a drinking vessel. In the 19th century, sailors referred to the glazed jugs used in public houses as "monkey". A "stick" was a shot of alcohol such as rum or brandy. To "knock it off" meant to knock it back—or to drink it. The night out drinking used up all the money, conveyed in the lyrics "that's the way the money goes."
Fourth verse The fourth verse relates to a tailor and clothing. Purchasing thread and needles may refer to paying for the items needed to work.
Fifth verse