A post on a social media site surprised me by using language that I had used with my daughter. When she was a toddler and came to us crying, her mother and I would ask her, “Did you fall down, go boom?” The post was about a song from the 1920s: “I Faw Down an’ Go Boom.” Written and put to music by James Brockman and Leonard Stevens, the song has been performed by Annette Hanshaw (1929) and Eddie Cantor (1929.) I don’t remember ever having heard a recording of it. But I do remember posing the question to my first daughter; almost 50 years later, a social media post led me to the origin of the phrase.
The things that we are exposed to as children are expressed from us by the weight of adulthood. My father was the manager of his brother’s band — Uncle Donald was a jazz trumpeter — and I grew up with various sounds of music in my ears. It is not unlikely that I heard the “faw down” song as a child. I can remember my father grabbing the mantle over the fireplace in the apartment we rented and dancing and singing: “Do the Hucklebuck!” The song came from a jazz and R&B dance tune from the late 1940s, which is likely when my father was introduced to it. When I was a teen, we used the term to indicate a snafu, or snag in some plan. (Until recently, I was unaware that there are more unsavory definitions.) But falling down, going boom: That stayed with me, and I passed it on to my three children and my three grandchildren.
My grandson is 18, a football and basketball player who will soon graduate from high school and enter college. It has been a long time since I asked him, “Did you fall down, go boom?” His sister is a dancer, gymnast, and volleyball goalie and though she has “gone boom,” it has not been recently. The last in the grandbeauty parade is 4 years old, and the one most likely to fall down. But she is past the age when I can use the catchphrase with her. I asked the question of her when she was a new toddler; sometimes, her uncertain steps would fail her, and she would land on the floor. “You fall down, go boom?” Now, should she end up on the ground, she likely to spin toward me, raise her thumb and say, “I’m OK!” Unless it is a dramatic crash that causes tears, which allows me to gather her into my arms and whisper into her ear, “Did you fall down, go boom?” Actually, (a term that my 4-year-old often uses,) her catchphrase should be from “Tubthumping,” the song by the British rock band Chumbawamba: “I get knocked down, but I get up again!”
That should be the mantra of my three grands. Xavion has been a running back and linebacker in football, and a point guard and forward in basketball. Imani’s been a gymnast since before she knew who Simone Biles is and became a fiercely instinctive goalie in middle school. Myah has been showing signs of the resilience that her two cousins have. I might soon have to start blasting Chumbawamba from my Bluetooth speaker so that she can dance to the lyrics. Dancing is her current favorite sport, and some of dance moves require that she fall down and get up again. Soon she’ll be singing, “I get knocked down, but I get up again/You are never gonna keep me down!”
Yes, indeed.
cjon3acd@att.net