Hindsight

Jonluw

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May 23, 2010
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Hiya escapists.

I just remembered a song my mother used to sing for me when I was a wee lad.
Roughly translated, the lyrics go like this:

"Little Mambo from the Mambo-tribe
called for his warriors to gather
for the tribe was in bitter need
they were lacking human meat

Ooh-aah, oao-ah, ooh-ah, ooh-ah
Ooh-aah, oao-ah, ooh-ah, ooh-ah
"

Looking at the lyrics now, it dawns on me that they are ever so slighly fucked up.
She also used to sing a song about someone making limbs for their man out of various things (roots, sheep, guts, etc.).

So, escapists: What kind of things can you remember (from your childhoods, maybe?) that are sort of fucked up in hindsight?
 

DugMachine

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Apr 5, 2010
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I learned that the "why did the chicken cross the road?" joke is actually about suicide. Now if that's true or not idk but I never thought of it that way before.
 

Redlin5_v1legacy

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Aug 5, 2009
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When I think about my early fascination with tanks, guns and war even before I played video games on those topics...

I wonder why I was like that. I hate funerals, why would I love things that mass produce death so much?
 

Souldemon8

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Nov 30, 2009
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Redlin5 said:
When I think about my early fascination with tanks, guns and war even before I played video games on those topics...
My childhood and early adolescence in a nutshell. Just missing the intense desire to grow up and be Tony Stark (The billionaire playboy weapons manufacture, not the stiff in the suit) and my quest to militarize the entire planet. This mindset quickly changed after realizing that war and violence in general is terrifying and uncalled for.
 

RJ 17

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Nov 27, 2011
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Rock-A-Bye Baby is pretty fucked up.

"Rock-a-bye baby
On the tree-top.

When the wind blows,
The craddle will rock.

When the bough breaks,
The craddle will fall.

And down will come baby,
Craddle and all."

It's a song about a baby falling out of a frickin' tree. o.o
 

Dags90

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Oct 27, 2009
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Where does your mom get these nursery rhymes? Seriously, I'd be concerned.

Just the standard Western European fairy tales that have much, much darker versions. Piped Piper, Rumpelstiltskin, et. al. Honestly, I was more of a Dr. Seuss toddler though.

When I was 10 or 11 we went to the Lizzie Borden house and learned a locally popular jump rope tune about the incident.

Lizzie Borden with an axe,
Gave her mother forty whacks.
And when she saw what she had done,
She gave her father forty one.
 

CpT_x_Killsteal

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Jun 21, 2012
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Anything I was taught about the Bible.

When you're a kid it doesn't really dawn on you that EVERYONE DIED A FUCKING HORRIBLE DEATH.
 

Signa

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DugMachine said:
I learned that the "why did the chicken cross the road?" joke is actually about suicide. Now if that's true or not idk but I never thought of it that way before.
Really? I reject that.

The joke was a cliche BEFORE I heard it as a kid, so it took a while before the comedy actually hit me. It's simply an anti-joke. You expect there to be a real reason for the punchline to work, but nope, it's not what you expect. He just simply wanted to cross the road. I can see it as hilarious if it was conceived in a time when all jokes were Delivery > Punchline.

Hm, I wonder if that's why we have the anti-joke chicken meme, because of the chicken in the road joke.
 

DugMachine

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Signa said:
DugMachine said:
I learned that the "why did the chicken cross the road?" joke is actually about suicide. Now if that's true or not idk but I never thought of it that way before.
Really? I reject that.

The joke was a cliche BEFORE I heard it as a kid, so it took a while before the comedy actually hit me. It's simply an anti-joke. You expect there to be a real reason for the punchline to work, but nope, it's not what you expect. He just simply wanted to cross the road. I can see it as hilarious if it was conceived in a time when all jokes were Delivery > Punchline.

Hm, I wonder if that's why we have the anti-joke chicken meme, because of the chicken in the road joke.
yeah see that's what I always thought as well but when I heard the suicide theory or whatever it just made me think. I doubt it's trying to be that deep and you're probably right. Just saying, it's an interesting way to look at it.
 
Apr 24, 2008
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I think there are lots of examples of this kind of thing. I've heard Jack & Jill is about adultery...at the very least Jack gets his skull cracked.

Ring around the rosie is apparently about the plague.
 

Stasisesque

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Sexual Harassment Panda said:
Ring around the rosie is apparently about the plague.
Nah, it's a popular legend rejected by pretty much everyone who studies these things. It is undeniably creepy, though.
 

Blunderboy

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Dags90 said:
Where does your mom get these nursery rhymes? Seriously, I'd be concerned.

Just the standard Western European fairy tales that have much, much darker versions. Piped Piper, Rumpelstiltskin, et. al. Honestly, I was more of a Dr. Seuss toddler though.

When I was 10 or 11 we went to the Lizzie Borden house and learned a locally popular jump rope tune about the incident.

Lizzie Borden with an axe,
Gave her mother forty whacks.
And when she saw what she had done,
She gave her father forty one.
Good old Lizzie Borden. I'd never heard of her until she was in The Simpsons.



Plus one of my favourite bands (The Dresden Dolls) has a song that is at least partially about her. It's called Thirty Whacks. This is because, despite the rhyme a total of thirty wounds were found on the victims. Eleven on her father and Nineteen on her stepmother.

Thirty drops in a glass, keep my temper and pass
With my breath held. You bastards, you lucked out again!
It's not really so bad. There?s still mom, there?s still
Damage to do before they wrest the axe from my hands.
OT - I don't really have anything to add right now, I just wanted to share. :p
 

Wolf In A Bear Suit

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Ring-A-Ring-A-Rosie is quite a strange song it's about dying from the black plague. And on a subject I can't blame on anyone, I had a habit of crapping in public pools as a child. Like I got an entire pool shut down for a day as a baby. The pool owner's of Ireland slowly came to fear me and to fear the name of the "Phantom Poo"
 

DoomyMcDoom

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my entire chilhood, consisted of being isolated from society by a single mother with social anxiety problems, sitting at home studying whatever I could get, everything from desigh specs for nuclear submarines, to wars fought throughout history, to how to bake a cake or make deliscious soups and stews... oh and I learned to play the piano, thing is, I was homeschooled, taught a lot of conflicting things, I was taught to put everyone else before myself, was taught that sex was bad, and that all violence was wrong, also that smoking and drinking and doing any form of drugs was satan's path, and that the law was always right... also was taught that I was smart... then I went to school for the first time, and well, even though I was getting near perfect marks, due to how i was treated by my peers, who were all upper middle class children with two well payed parents and all the accessories, and me being that kid with no dad, and no new shit, well let's just say my previous put everyone else first and don't be violent lessons, let me gain the knowledge that I was a worthless butt ugly retard who nobody wants. I later rebelled but for the longest time and even some today, because my family is so fucked up, and because I never had any real friends growing up, I have had and still do have serious self esteem and insecurity issues...

looking back I can see how fucked up it was, but back then, I just accepted it like it was my fate, never really fought back.
 

Flamezdudes

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RJ 17 said:
Rock-A-Bye Baby is pretty fucked up.

"Rock-a-bye baby
On the tree-top.

When the wind blows,
The craddle will rock.

When the bough breaks,
The craddle will fall.

And down will come baby,
Craddle and all."

It's a song about a baby falling out of a frickin' tree. o.o
Woah, you're kidding. I had never realised how fucked up that rhyme is till now.

OT: I've got nothing, when asked I can never remember these things. Although everyone knows how weird Pokemon is in hindsight - Forcing animals to fight eachother almost to the death for people's amusement while also being entrapped in small spaces when not fighting.
 

sinsfire

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Nov 17, 2009
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The song "Clementine" is about a sequestered miner's daughter who drowns

"The Itsy Bitsy Spider" is rather futile in nature
 

gh0ti

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Apr 10, 2008
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The Pied Piper of Hamelin. As far as children's stories go, that one is pretty messed up.

And Roald Dahl stories. When you're a kid, you just sort of go with them without even realising how creepy and gruesome they can be.
 

Mordekaien

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gh0ti said:
The Pied Piper of Hamelin. As far as children's stories go, that one is pretty messed up.

And Roald Dahl stories. When you're a kid, you just sort of go with them without even realising how creepy and gruesome they can be.
This can be said about almost every fairy tale ever.

OT, Slovak Fairy tales are pretty messed up, the evil guys are always punished, pretty harshly, I might add. Things like flaying, tearing between horses, beating them bloody with staffs, one has to wonder why haven't I killed someone as a kid.
 

krazykidd

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Mar 22, 2008
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Completly pulling this one out of my ass , but , Hush little baby , is about making a child shut up by buying them whatever they want , and if that doesn't work they buy them something else , essentially spoiling the child and making them be materialist . Good parenting for the win .

Edit: i vaguely remember a mother goos nursery rhyme where you throw a old man down a flight of stairs and he wouldn't wake up in the morning , anyone knows what that is?