When we were kids we used to accuse a friend of lying by chanting,"Liar liar pants are on fire nose is long as a telephone wireLiar liar" I sure we made that up in our neighborhood and then the other day while playing cards with a person from Liberal Texas and she said, "liar, liar, chicken fryer your pants are on fire" something she said from her youth.
My question: How did it get from our neighborhood in Brigham City Utah to Liberal Kansas
Maybe by way of The Castaways? Here it is in performance.
The version we got in the Los Angeles area was "Liar, liar, pants on fire, hanging on a telephone wire".
Barry Popik wrote on this recently:
http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/liar_liar_pants_on_fire/
(I found the part about the "alleged 1810 poem" interesting as well.)
Fascinating. Thanks.
Garry
In my neighborhood we said "Liar, liar, your pants are on fire; you can't get over a telephone wire", which even then I thought made little sense; would I have been able to get over a telephone wire had I been telling the truth?