Bingo (folk song)

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"**Bingo**", also known as "**Bingo Was His Name-O**", "**There Was a Farmer Had a Dog**", and "**C'era un contadino che aveva un cagnolino di nome Bingolino**" or informally "**B-I-N-G-O**", is a Scottish children's song of obscure origin. Additional verses are sung by omitting the first letter sung in the previous verse and clapping instead of actually saying the word. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 589.

**Lyrics**

The contemporary version generally goes as follows:[1]**Earlier forms**
**The earliest reference to any form of the song is from the title of a piece of sheet music published in 1780, which attributed the song to William Swords, an actor at the Haymarket Theatre of London.[2][3] Early versions of the song were variously titled "The Farmer's Dog Leapt o'er the Stile", "A Franklyn's Dogge", or "Little Bingo".**

An early transcription of the song (without a title) dates from the 1785 songbook "The Humming Bird",[4] and reads: This is how most people know the traditional children's song:

A similar transcription exists from 1840, as part of The Ingoldsby Legends, the transcribing of which is credited in part to a "Mr. Simpkinson from Bath". This version drops several of the repeated lines found in the 1785 version and the transcription uses more archaic spelling and the first lines read "A franklyn's dogge" rather than "The farmer's dog".[5] A version similar to the Ingoldsby one (with some spelling variations) was also noted from 1888.[6]

The presence of the song in the United States was noted by Robert M. Charlton in 1842.[7] English folklorist Alice Bertha Gomme recorded eight forms in 1894. Highly-differing versions were recorded in Monton, Shropshire, Liphook and Wakefield, Staffordshire, Nottinghamshire, Cambridgeshire, Derbyshire and Enborne. All of these versions were associated with children's games, the rules differing by locality.[8] Early versions of "Bingo" were also noted as adult drinking songs.[9]

Variations on the lyrics refer to the dog variously as belonging to a milleror a shepherd, and/or named "Bango" or "Pinto". In some variants, variations on the following third stanza are added:

This stanza is placed before or substituted for the stanza starting with "And is this not a sweet little song?"

Versions that are variations on the early version of "Bingo" have been recorded in classical arrangements by Frederick Ranalow (1925), John Langstaff (1952), and Richard Lewis (1960). Under the title "Little Bingo", a variation on the early version was recorded twice by folk singer Alan Mills, on Animals, Vol. 1 (1956) and on 14 Numbers, Letters, and Animal Songs (1972).

The song should not be confused with the 1961 UK hit pop song "Bingo, Bingo (I'm In Love)" by Dave Carey, which originated as a jingle for radio station Radio Luxembourg.**References**

1. , p. 17.
2. Gilchrist A. G., Lucy E. Broadwood, Frank Kidson. (1915.) "Songs Connected with Customs". Journal of the Folk-Song Society 5(19):204–220, p. 216–220.
3. Highfill, Philip H., Kalman A. Burnim, Edward A. Langhans. (1991.) "Swords, William". In: A Biographical Dictionary of Actors, Vol 14, p 355.
4. n.a. (1785). The Humming Bird : Or, a Compleat Collection of the Most Esteemed Songs. Containing Above Fourteen Hundred of the Most Celebrated English, Scotch, and Irish Songs. London and Canterbury: Simmons and Kirkby, and J. Johnson. p. 399.
5. (Full PDF, p. 162)
7. Charlton, Robert M. (1842). "Stray Leaves From the Port-Folio of a Georgia Lawyer, part 2", The Knickerbocker 19(3):121–125. p. 123–125.
9. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYJ2sFJGXNE

**External links**

* A Brief List of Material Relating to "Bingo" ("Bingo"), compiled by Joseph C. Hickerson, American Folklife Center, 27 June 1974