DOPE ON HOKEY POKEY

Popular Ditty Was Not About Catholics, Just Drug-Addled Canadian Miners

By Randy Boswell, Canwest News Service

The Hokey Pokey -- the right-hand-in, right-handout ditty that is a
musical staple of nursery schools -- has become the focus of a
bizarre controversy in Britain that has drawn in politicians, the
Catholic Church and soccer fans accused of exploiting the song's
alleged anti-Catholic roots to taunt opposing teams.

To add to the strangeness, the son of famed Irish songwriter Jimmy
Kennedy -- the man credited with penning the lyrics to one of the
world's most familiar melodies -- has now weighed in on the
controversy to reveal what he says is the true inspiration for his
father's hit: a traditional Canadian folk tune sung by miners in the
early 20th century as a drug anthem celebrating the therapeutic
powers of cocaine.

The song, which sparked a 1950s dance craze, is known in Britain as
The Hokey Cokey, and was originally published by Mr. Kennedy during
the Second World War as The Cokey Cokey before various U. S.
recordings of The Hokey Pokey gave the song and its accompanying
rudimentary dance movements worldwide popularity.

In December, the song sparked an uproar in Scotland when fans of the
Glasgow Rangers soccer team were accused of planning to sing it to
insult rival Glasgow Celtic, a club with Catholic roots.

A Catholic Church spokesman warned that The Hokey Cokey had
centuries-old origins as a Protestant song meant to mock the words
and actions of Catholic clergy presiding over the Latin Mass.
"Although apparently innocuous, it was devised as an attack on and a
parody of the Catholic mass," said Peter Kearney, a spokesman for
Scottish Catholic Cardinal Keith O'Brien.

A Nationalist member of the Scottish Parliament even issued a warning
about The Hokey Cokey: "It is important that the police and football
clubs are aware of the sinister background to this song, and take the
appropriate action against individuals and groups who use it at
matches or in other situations to taunt Catholics," said Michael Matheson.

This debate over The Hokey Pokey has raged on for weeks in the
letters pages and Web sites of British newspapers.

Now, in a letter published on Tuesday in the Financial Times, Jimmy
Kennedy Jr. has written that the version created by his late father,
the renowned lyricist of Teddy Bears' Picnic, "was founded on a
traditional Canadian song and is the one copyrighted and played and
danced to all over the world --and still earns royalties."

He quoted his father's own recollections about how the ditty emerged
from a 1942 gathering of Canadian soldiers at a London nightclub.

"They were having a hilarious time, singing and playing games, one of
which they said was a Canadian children's game called the Cokey
Cokey. I thought to myself, wouldn't that be fun as a dance to cheer
people up! So when I got back to my hotel, I wrote a chorus based on
the feet and hand movements the Canadians had used, with a few
adaptations. A few days later, I wrote additional lyrics to it but
kept the title, Cokey Cokey, and, as everybody knows, it became a big hit."

Mr. Kennedy Jr. said his father told him "the unusual title was to do
with drugs taken by the miners in Canada to cheer themselves up in
the harsh environment where they were prospecting" and said his
father even had a notation on the back of the sheet music: "The word
'Cokey' means a dope-fiend."