Sorry for the click bait-y headline, but couldn’t resist. It’s not all that dark.
How did I even get here? Well, today on bsky, someone posted the following quote:
My response was the following:
Of course, I had to look up who wrote the song, and what I found was that Larry LaPrise held the copyright, but that two other songwriters claimed authorship. This is just from the Wikipedia article, for all I know there is a whole rabbit hole of investigative reporting on the true origins of The Hokey Pokey, and indeed, even, what it is all about.
It reminds me of the similar controversy about the song ‘Rum and Coca-Cola’, copyrighted by Bobby Troop, but apparently also taken from other sources.
Update: I was right, there is a Rabbit Hole. Here’s some links to start, if you dare:
https://theoutline.com/post/565/the-writer-of-the-hokey-pokey-has-died-three-times