A pug came into the kitchen

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A pug in a kitchen

A pug came into the kitchen is a German-language folk song . It is about a pug who "pugs" an egg in a kitchen, then kills him by the cook and is buried and mourned by other pugs, with the epitaph again citing what happened.

An alternative variant of the song reads A dog came in the kitchen , in the English-speaking world it is known as A dog came in the kitchen .

Origin and shape

The author and the historical origin of the nursery rhyme are not known. A song with a similar content entitled A dog ran through the kitchen , which however had a different melody and did not yet have the characteristic of the " endless loop ", can be traced back to 1840. The origin of the "endless" text is also occasionally given for the 19th century, but there is no evidence for this. In 1924 the text was recorded in Württemberg . In use songbooks appeared A pug came into the kitchen from about 1929 on.

The melody of the song is the same as that of the folk song Mein Hut, which has three corners and has its origin in the Neapolitan canzonetta O mamma, mamma cara . The melody was picked up and processed or varied by various composers.

The lyrics of the song are recursive as they result in a quote from yourself. The song can be repeated as often as you like, with each repetition reaching a deeper “quote level”. This makes it an example of a mise en abyme (“picture in picture” or “a picture that contains itself”). Hans Magnus Enzensberger included the song in his anthology Das Wasserzeichen der Poesie as an example of iteration .

text

A pug came into the kitchen consists of two stanzas. The content of the second stanza is followed by the first, which makes the song an "endless song".

A pug came into the kitchen
and stole an egg from the cook.
Then the cook took the ladle
and beat the pug to a pulp.

Many pugs came
and dug a grave for him
and put a tombstone for him.
On it was written:

A pug came into the kitchen
and stole an egg from the cook.
[...]

Depending on the recording, the song has come down to us with slightly varying texts. There are, for example, text variants in which the pug is beaten to death with a spoon instead of a ladle, in some versions instead of “to a pulp” it is “broken in half” or the other pugs set a memorial for it instead of a tombstone. Another variety of text speaks generally of a dog, not specifically of a pug.

In the English version of the pug steals the cook an egg, but a bread crust ( English crust of bread ) and is then also killed with a trowel.

melody

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reception

Wladimir, one of the main characters from Samuel Beckett's 1953 work Waiting for Godot , sings the entire text of A Dog Came into the Kitchen at the beginning of Act 2 . Beckett had gotten to know the song during his trip to Germany during a stay in Weimar in January 1937 and recorded it in his diary. In Beckett's English version of the piece, the text begins with A dog came in the kitchen . In this version of the text, the pug does not steal an egg from the cook, but a crust of bread and is then hit with a ladle.

As early as 1922 Bertolt Brecht used the song in his piece Drummeln in der Nacht , by having his main character Andreas Kragler sing the first part of the text. After Brecht had obtained the libretto from Waiting for Godot , he expanded Kragler's text to include the entire song as part of a revision of his own piece in the 1950s.

Brecht also included the circular poem in his exercises for actors from 1939 . The text from A dog went to the kitchen has since been used by acting students as an exercise to train different characters to speak. For this purpose, the text of the song is recited several times in a row in different postures or moods.

An Austrian crime film from 2002 bears the alternative song title A dog came into the kitchen .

The Staatstheater Mainz performed a play called A Pug in the Kitchen in the Hörheater series , which premiered on February 26, 2016.

The author Gisa Kossel published the book A Pug Came in the Kitchen - Infinite Variations in 2012 , in which she collected 35 variations of the lyrics of the song, contributed by different authors. In 2018 Kossel wrote the verse novel The Miraculous Pilgrimage of Cook and Pug to Santiago de Compostela , which is based on the lyrics, in which the cook does not kill the pug, but makes a pilgrimage with him on the Camino de Santiago to Santiago de Compostela .

Web links

Commons : A pug came into the kitchen  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ludwig Erk , Wilhelm Irmer (Hrsg.): The German folk songs with their ways of singing. Fifth issue. Plahn, Berlin 1840, p. 18 ( digitized in the Google book search).
  2. ^ A b Andreas Thalmayr (= Hans Magnus Enzensberger) (Ed.): The watermark of poetry or the art and pleasure of reading poetry. In 164 varieties (= the other library . 9). Greno, Nördlingen 1985, ISBN 3-921568-37-4 , p. 147 u. Note p. 457.
  3. ↑ a b Georg Nagel: A dog came into the kitchen. Song archive, September 8, 2017, accessed on January 28, 2020 .
  4. ↑ Albert Wesselski : The fairy tale of the death of the chicken and other chain tales. In: Hessian sheets for folklore. 32 (1933), pp. 1-51, here p. 29 f. ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  5. ^ Otto Holzapfel : List of songs. Volume 1. Olms, Hildesheim 2006, ISBN 3-487-13101-3 . Online update 2019: p. 468 (PDF).
  6. ↑ Tobias Bulang: Art. Round fairy tales. In: Rolf Wilhelm Brednich (ed.): Encyclopedia of fairy tales . Volume 11: Exam - Chimera Tales. de Gruyter, Berlin 2004, ISBN 3-11-017565-7 , Sp. 919–921 ( limited preview in the Google book search).
  7. ↑ Carolin Eberhardt: A pug came into the kitchen. Germany reading, accessed on January 28, 2020 .
  8. ↑ About pugs, mothers and fog splitters: "My hat, it has three corners". BR Klassik, January 4, 2011, accessed January 28, 2020 .
  9. ↑ Volker Wahl: How Weimar Chants Inspired Samuel Beckett. "A dog came into the kitchen" ... and found its way into a drama in world literature. Thüringische Landeszeitung, December 22, 2014, accessed on January 29, 2020 .
  10. ^ Klaus-Dieter Krabiel: The brass purchase. In: Jan Knopf (Ed.): Brecht-Handbuch: Volume 4: Writings, journals, letters. Metzler, Stuttgart a. Weimar 2003, ISBN 978-3-476-01832-8 , pp. 192–220, here p. 218 ( limited preview in the Google book search).
  11. ↑ Lydia J. White: Theater of Exile: Bertolt Brecht's "The brass purchase". Metzler, Berlin 2019, ISBN 978-3-476-04988-9 , p. 34 ( limited preview in the Google book search).
  12. ↑ Cersten Jacob: From test anxiety to test courage , from stage fright to the desire to perform . Schattauer, Stuttgart 2015, ISBN 978-3-608-43094-3 , p. 40 f . ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  13. ↑ Theater schedule 2015/16 presented. Theaterfreunde Mainz, accessed on January 28, 2020 .
  14. ↑ Sabine Schicke: Neverending Story: A pug came into the kitchen. Nordwest-Zeitung, August 18, 2012, accessed on January 28, 2020 .
  15. ^ Susanne Gloger: Poetic pilgrimage with pug. Nordwest-Zeitung, September 6, 2018, accessed on January 28, 2020 .