Hokey Cokey

The hokey cokey (Ireland, United Kingdom), or hokey pokey (United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the Caribbean), is a participation dance with a distinctive accompanying tune and lyric structure. It is well known in English-speaking countries. It originates in a British folk dance, with variants attested as early as 1826. The song and accompanying dance peaked in popularity as a music hall song and novelty dance in the mid-1940s in Britain and Ireland. The song was a chart hit twice in the 1980s - first by The Snowmen which peaked at UK #18 in 1981, and then Black Lace who reached #31 in 1985.

Despite several claims of a recent invention, numerous variants of the song exist going back centuries. Some scholars found similar dances and lyrics dating back to the 17th century. One of the earlier variants, with a very similar dance to the modern one, is found in Robert Chambers' Popular Rhymes of Scotland from 1826; the words there are given as:

A later variant of this song is the Shaker song "Hinkum-Booby", which had more similar lyrics to the modern song and was published in Edward Deming Andrews' A gift to be simple in 1940: (p. 42).

A version known as "Ugly Mug" is described in 1872:

A version from c. 1891 from the town of Golspie in Scotland was published by Edward W. B. Nicholson:

In the book English Folk-Rhymes, published 1892, a version of the song originating from Sheffield is given:

In the book Charming Talks about People and Places, published circa 1900, there is a song with music on page 163 entitled "Turn The Right Hand In". It has 9 verses, which run thus: "Turn the right hand in, turn the right hand out, give your hands a very good shake, and turn your body around." Additional verses include v2. left hand...; v3. both hands...; v4. right foot...; v5. left foot...; v6. both feet...; v7. right cheek...; v8. left cheek...; and, v9. both cheeks... The tune is not the same as the later popular version of the Hokey cokey but the verse is more similar as it states to "turn your body around." No author or composer was credited.

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