John Brown's mother said that coffee isn't good!
John Brown's mother said that coffee isn't good!
John Brown's mother said that coffee isn't good,
For children growing up!
John Brown's mother said that tea is just as bad!
John Brown's mother said that tea is just as bad!
John Brown's mother said that tea is just as bad,
For children growing up!
John Brown's mother said that milk is very best!
John Brown's mother said that milk is very best!
John Brown's mother said that milk is very best,
For children growing up!
Before writing about the memory, Marash Girl decided to check the internet to see if the lyrics were recorded anywhere, and try as she might, she found nothing relating to John Brown's mother's words of wisdom on coffee, tea or milk. Who was John Brown's mother, anyway?
Amazing how ingrained a song learned in kindergarten becomes, to remember the song all these years later! Was it a song instituted into the kindergarten curriculum by the dairy farmers of Massachusetts? Have any of you ever heard the song? Please share your memories in the comments below!
I have no idea where this version of "John Brown" came from, however, one line reminds me of something.... My mother grew up in Winthrop. She told me that when she was a little girl in the 1920s she went to temperance lectures conducted by the mother of the writer, Edward Roe Snow. They were really lectures, they were propaganda sessions for children. My grandparents did not approve of my mother and my aunt going to them, but they were children and it was an afternoon's entertainment. Mrs. Snow taught them various temperance songs. One of the songs included the line "And tea is just as bad."
ReplyDeleteMarko Pasha
Yes, my dad, born 1940, sang this to me as a kid in the 70's... John Brown's mother said that coffee is no good, , for little boys and girls...
ReplyDeleteTo add a location to my comment above, my dad was born/raised in Kauai and Oahu, Hawaii from 1940 to 1958 before joining the Army.
ReplyDeleteI remember singing this song in school in the 1950s. In Sydney Australia.
ReplyDelete