Buh-buh-buh-buh
Clap-clap
And repeat. And repeat with variation.
Buh-buh-buh-buh
Clap-clap
Buh-buh-buh-buh
Buh-buh-buh-buh
Buh-buh-buh-buh
Clap-clap
It is, of course, the opening for the theme song that opened the Addams Family TV show, which, um, opened in the mid-1960s.
I know whence it came, I expect that *you* know, but what about all the under-40s at the baseball game, happily and correctly substituting claps for the original two-handed snaps? Do they know its origins? Maybe. Maybe not.
I expect that many of them know it only as one of the many clap-along music clips at the baseball game. Exactly the same way that I know this one . . .
Which, as it turns out, is a bit that’s jumped to independent life from the Cha Cha Slide, written by Mr C the Slide Man (AKA DJ Casper) (AKA William Perry Jr), not one of whom I had never heard until, um, just now. There is, of course, an official music video but I prefer this next version.
And there’s this song, instantly recognizable by its clap-clap, clap-clap-clap-clap-clap rhythm.
And there’s this one, with its familiar thump-thump, thump-thump.
What’s more–or less, in these cases I guess–is that as with DJ Casper, I couldn’t begin to tell you the names of these songs either or of the unknown-to-me groups responsible for them: Rose Royce and Violent Femmes, respectively.
That’s OK. We all know different stuff, and the same stuff differently, and yet we can sometimes clap pretty much as one. Such is culture: I often don’t know what I’m clapping to, but I do (mostly) know when to clap.
Clappity, clappity, clappity, aloonnng…
Tom
Tom – 🙂
You remind me of a special pattern of clapping that signified special thanks to, say, the church workers in the kitchen who prepared a dinner for the youth group or to the basketball team that won the game in the church league. I would recognize it anywhere. I have no idea where it came from or if it still is used somewhere. It certainly reinforced the camaraderie of those young people’s groups, something like “secret” handshakes, I guess.
Laurna – 🙂 Now that’s a bit trickier – finding a clapping pattern through an online search. But what fun. I’ve never heard or such a thing, much less experienced it.