Hokey Pokey

For the other uses, see Hokey pokey.

The Hokey Pokey or the White Mans dance is a participation dance with a distinctive accompanying tune and lyric structure. It is well known in English-speaking countries.

It is of unclear origin with two main traditions having evolved in different parts of the world.

British Isles

File:The Cokey Cokey (Jimmy Kennedy).jpg

The Cokey Cokey, Jimmy Kennedy, 1942

Known as the Hokey Cokey it has virtually the same lyric, tune, and dance style as the U.S. version and was a music hall song and novelty dance popular in England in the mid-1940s. "Hokey-cokey" is also known as "Okey-cokey", perhaps following London Cockney pronunciation.

There is a claim of authorship by the British/Irish songwriter Jimmy Kennedy, responsible for the lyrics to popular songs such as the wartime We're Going to Hang out the Washing on the Siegfried Line and the children's song Teddy bears' picnic. Sheet music copyrighted in 1942 and published by Campbell Connelly & Co Ltd, agents for Kennedy Music Co Ltd, styles the song as "the Cokey Cokey".

A competing authorship claim is made by or on behalf of British bandleader Gerry Hoey from around 1940, under the title "the Hoey Oka".

hte hoky poky sucks a lot

Origins and Meaning

There are many theories and conjectures about the meaning of the words "Hokey Pokey", and of their origin. Some scholars attribute the origin to the Shaker song Hinkum-Booby which had similar lyrics and was published in Edward Deming Andrews' A gift to be simple in 1940: (p.42)

" A song rendered ("with appropriate gestures") by two Canterbury sisters while on a visit to Bridgewater, N.H. in 1857 starts thus:

I put my right hand in,

I put my right hand out,

I give my right hand a shake, shake shake

And I turn myself about.

As the song continues, the "left hand" is put in, then the "right foot," then the "left foot," then "my whole head."

...Newell gave it the title, "Right Elbow In," and said that is was danced " deliberately and decorously...with slow rhythmical motion."

Before the invention of ice cream cones, ice cream was often sold wrapped in waxed paper and known as a hokey-pokey (possibly a corruption of the Italian "ecco un poco" - "here is a little"). An Italian ice cream street vendor was called a hokey-pokey man.

Other scholars have found similar dances and lyrics dating back to the 17th century. A very similar dance is cited in Robert Chambers' Popular Rhymes of Scotland from 1826.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary "hokey cokey" comes from "hocus pocus", the traditional magician's incantation which in its turn derives from a distortion of hoc enim est corpus meum - "this is my body" - the words of consecration accompanying the elevation of the host at Eucharist, the point, at which according to traditional Catholic practice, transubstantiation takes place - mocked by Puritans and others as a form of "magic words". The Anglican Canon George Nairn-Briggs, Provost of Wakefield Cathedral, West Yorkshire, says that the dance as well comes from the Catholic Latin mass. The priest would perform his movements with his back to the congregation, who could not hear well the Latin words nor see clearly his movements.

Dance moves

Participants stand in the shape of a big ring formation during the dance. The dance follows the instructions given in the lyrics of the song, which may be prompted by a bandleader or another danceleader.

• Specific body parts are named, and these are then sequentially put into the ring, taken out of the ring, and finally wiggled around maniacally inside the ring.
• After this is done one raises one's hands up to the side of the head, wiggles them, and turns around in place until the next sequence begins, with a new named body part.

A sample instruction set would be:

• You put your left leg in
• You put your left leg out
• You put your left leg in
• And you shake it all about.
• You do the Hokey Cokey and you turn around
• That's what it's all about...

In some cultures, this step is only repeated after a new chorus,

• Oh, the hokey pokey,
• Oh, the hokey pokey,
• Oh, the hokey pokey,
• That's what it's all about.

Similar to the repeat above, the Australian tradition repeat is:

• Do, the hokey pokey,
• Do, the hokey pokey,
• Do, the hokey pokey,
• And that's what it's all about.

The Dance in the UK

In parts of the UK the entire dance can be quite different. The instruction set would go as follows:

• You put your left leg in
• Your left leg out
• In, out, in, out,
• shake it all about.
• You do the Hokey Cokey and you turn around
• That's what it's all about...

Each instruction set would be followed chorus, which is entirely different from other parts of the world:

• Woah, hokey cokey cokey,
• Woah, hokey cokey cokey,
• Woah, hokey cokey cokey,
• Knees bent, arms stretched, ra ra ra!

For this chorus all participants are stood in a circle and hold hands, on each "woah" they all run in toward the centre of the circle and on "hokey cokey cokey" they all run backwards out again. On the last line they bend knees then stretch arms, as indicated, and for "ra ra ra!" they either clap in time or raise arms above their heads and push upwards in time. More often than not, each subsequent verse and chorus is a little faster, with the ultimate aim of making people fall over.

Copyright

• In the United States it costs $32 000 for an ad campaign (television and radio for 3 months) to use the "Hokey Pokey".
• In the United Kingdom the "Hokey Cokey" (although not necessarily the U.S. Hokey Pokey) is regarded as a traditional song and is therefore free of copyright restrictions.

Popular Culture, Trivia

• Martin de Maat used the words of the song in his lessons to comedy students at The Second City, saying: "The Hokey Pokey. Think about it. At the end of the song, what do we learn? What is it all about?... You put your whole self in!"
• At Virginia Tech, where the athletic teams are known as Hokies, fans dance the Hokey Pokey (NOT the "Hokey Cokey") between the third and fourth quarters of football games.
• The song is humorously and existentially dealt with in Jimmy Buffett's song "What If The Hokey Pokey Is All It Really Is About?" in his 2002 album "Far Side of the World".
• In the universe of Babylon 5, the Hokey Pokey has apparently survived to the 23rd century, as it is referenced by Londo Mollari as "the one song that nearly all humans sing to their children at some point or another."
• To some, the final word on the Hokey Pokey was given by the actress Teri Garr one night on the David Letterman show: "It's the most liberating of all dances: you put your whole self in, you put your whole self out! You do the Hokey Pokey and you turn yourself around. And that's what it's all about!"
• Magic: the Gathering features a card called Knight of the Hokey Pokey with the flavor text stating "That's what it's all about." [1]
• In Britain the Hokey Cokey is evocative of the 1940s and the Second World War, and is regarded as a traditional Pub song and part of Cockney music hall tradition.
• In the Second World War comedy 'Allo 'Allo, episode 2 of season 2, Herr Flick shows to Helga the "traditional Gestapo Dance": You put your left boot in / you take your left boot out / you do a lot of shouting and you shake your fists about / you light a little smokey and you burn down ze town / zat what it's all about... heil! / Ah... Himmler Himmler Himmler....
• This song is prominently featured in episode 107, "Chinga", during season 5 of the X-Files.
• British Comedian Bill Bailey performed a German translation called "Das Hokey Kokey" in Part Troll, where he claimed it was a "lesser-known, lesser-performed track" by Kraftwerk (where he, joined by three other men in suits, danced robotically). Clip available on YouTube.

Man steckt der linke Arm ein, der linke Arm aus. Ein, aus, ein, aus. Man springt es alles um. Man macht das Hokey-Kokey und man dreht sich herum. Das ist die ganze Sache. Ja, das Hokey-Kokey. Ja, das Hokey-Kokey. Ja, das Hokey-Kokey. Knien gebogen, Armen gestrecht. Ra, ra, ra.

• A reprise of this dance was done during an episode of Sunset Beach that featured Caitlin Richards-Deschanel wedding to Cole Deschanel,with a very pregnant Olivia Richards taking part.
• At the satirical Pantomime put on by the British Embassy in Beijing during the Christmas season of 1983, a song to the tune of "Hokey Pokey" satirized the bland Chinese banquet delicacy "The Three Delicious." Those who had suffered a good deal from "Chinese Banquet Torture" appreciated the chorus: "Oh, the Three Delicious: / Sea slug, fish tum, fungus soup."
• In a parody of the science fiction comic Freefall there is a reference to a "cramped space" version that goes "You put your right hand in, you put your left eye out..."

External links

• Hokey Pokey - U.S. NIEHS website - Printed lyrics with synthesized music (no sung lyrics), with U.S. copyright information (audio plays automatically).
• Hokey Cokey - UK BBC website - Printed and sung lyrics with music, no copyright attribution (click for audio).