...and Bingo was his Name-o!

...and Bingo was his Name-o!
Nov 26 2009 11:35PM by Bingo Ben

It doesn't take long after mentioning that I write for a bingo blog before someone invariably says "...and Bingo was his Name-o?". Yes, I'm referring to our friend Farmer Brown and his faithful companion B-I-N-G-O.

I had never given much thought to the song - it clearly has little relation to internet bingo, or cash or prizes, or any of the other things that matter to the average UK Bingo player - yet, here it is, another little cultural artifact that we all know but have no idea where it came from. So, once again, in my continuing effort to maintain the best bingo site blog, I did a little research into our friend "Bingo".

The origins of the song are sketchy at best, but with a little effort I was lucky enough to stumble upon a copy of the earliest known form of the song.

Now on a personal note, I happened to have learned the song when I lived in the US for a few years as a child, and given that it was taught to me by a very Southern school-teacher in Jackson, Mississippi (where I might add I stuck out like a pale, sore thumb) I had always assumed it's origins lie in American rural life, perhaps descended from old slave tunes like so many American folks songs. I also assumed it was an offshoot of the game of bingo.

Now, as I wrote in an earlier post, the name "bingo" as applied to the game didn't pop up until New York in the 1920s, and then, only as a corruption of the word "Beano" (the game's original name). The earliest known form of the folk song "Bingo", however, dates back to 1888, in England. So, the song and the game's common name is but a coincidence. (Note the "888" in the date... surely also a coincidence.)

And here is that earliest recorded version:

A Franklyn's dogge leped over a style,

And hys name was littel Byngo.

B with a Y—Y with an N,

N with a G—G with an O,

They call'd hym littel Byngo!

Thys Franklyn, syrs, he brewed goode ayle,

And he called it Rare good Styngo!

S, T, Y, N, G, O!

He call'd it Rare goode Styngo!

Nowe is notte thys a prettie song

I thinke it is, bye Jyngo,

J wythe a Y—N, G, O—

I sweare yt is, bye Jyngo!

By 1894, the famous and fascinating English folklorist and child's games expert Alice Bertha Gomme recorded no less than eight highly varied versions of the song in Staffordshire, Monton, Nottinghamshire, Shropshire, Cambridgeshire, Liphook and Wakefield, Derbyshire and Enborne.

As a music lover, I have to say, I'm glad I'm not living in 1894 England.

That's all dear players. Until next time, from under the B, I'm Bingo Ben.

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