Annotation:Monkey's Wedding
X:1 T:Monkey's Wedding M:2/4 L:1/8 R:Song tune B:James L. Hewitt & Co., 137 Broadway, New York (1860's?) K:F "Song tune"C|FF F/F/F|AcAF|GGGG|G/A/G/F/ E C/C/|FFFF|AcAF| d>fe>g|f2 zc|f(f/g/) af|eg ec/c/|d(d/e/) f(e/d/)| cfcA|(B/A/) (B/c/) d (c/B/)|Acfd|(d/c/) (B/A/) (c/B/) (A/G/)|F3|| "instrumental break"c|ff/g/ af|egec|d/c/d/e/ fe/d/|cfcA| B/A/B/c/ dc/B/|Acfd|d/c/B/A/ c/B/A/G/|F3||
MONKEY'S WEDDING. AKA - "The Monkey Married the Baboon's Sister," "Oh the Monkey Marry to the Baboon Sister," "Paw Paw Patch," "Ten Little Indians." English, American, Canadian; Air (2/4 time), Two-step, March. A 'monkey's wedding' is a term for a sunshower (i.e. when it lightly rains but the sun shines through) in South Africa, but also in other parts of the English-speaking world as well. In fact, there are a variety of similar terms cross-culturally throughout the world, often involving inter-species marrying (or sometimes referencing the Devil) descriptive of the phenomenon.
However, "The Monkey's Wedding" is also a widespread and old comic song (that may pre-date the sunshower-phrase), but most often heard nowadays (when it is heard) as a children's song. Variants, sometimes quite distanced, can be found throughout the English-speaking world (see Mudcat discussion [1]). The following opening stanza is from Carl Sandburg's American Songbag (1927):
The monkey married the baboon's sister,
Gave her a ring and then he kissed her.
She set up a yell.
The bridesmaid stuck on some court-plaster.
It stuck so fast it couldn't stick faster.
Surely 'twas a sad disaster,
But it soon got well.
The song is older that Sandburg's volume, however, and was published in W. E Tunis' The Shilling Song Book (1860, Niagara Falls, N.Y., p. 16) nearly word-for-word. Eileen Southern (The Music of Black Americans, 1983, p. 186) maintains it was a plantation fiddle tune from the antebellum South.
