This beautifully strange, rhythmic, rhyming, onomatopoeic English word hails from the 18th century, meaning crumpled or gathered up, often pertaining to cloth or clothing, and deriving from the word for crease – a ruckle. This vividly conjures up much for the visual and aural imagination:
Inevitably there’s a distinct shortage of songs featuring the word, but here’s an example from a comic, shaggy-dog type traditional sing-a-long ballad sung by Pete Seeger - Down-A-Down, in which the punchline features the word ‘ruckle’ for wrinkle or crease in the skin. Leaving the live audience creased over in laughter, it’s released by Smithsonian Folkways Recordings.
Here's a song for one and all
About a man just two feet tall (with a-down, derry derry derry down down)
He met a dame on Blytheswood square …
She was forty, fat and fair
She says to him with a tender smile …
"Would you be free for a wee short while?"
His evil mind began to roam …
When she said "Deary, come on home"
She showed him to her room and said …
"Put all your clothes upon that bed"
She said "I'll be right back in a tick" …
The wee man through his clothes off quick
She brought her seven children in …
Said, "See that ruckle of bone and skin?"
Says she, destroying all his courage …
"That's what you get when you don't eat porridge"
Here also are some loosely connected rucklety-tucklety sorts of numbers:
Feel free to share anything more in relation to the rucklety-tucklety, whether in music or wider culture, such as from film, art, or other contexts, in comments below.
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