A woman in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, remembers a ditty she learned from her mother about “thirty purple birds,” but with a distinctive pronunciation that sounds more like “Toidy poipel blackbirds / Sittin’ on a coibstone / Choipin’ and boipin’ / And eatin’ doity oithworms.” Here’s the Red Hot Chili Peppers version. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Thirty Purple Birds”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hello, this is Cindy from Eau Claire, Wisconsin.
Oh, welcome, Cindy.
Hi, Cindy, welcome to the program.
Well, I was listening a couple of weeks ago, and I got the idea,
I wonder if A Way with Words might be able to help me find the origin
Of this little oral family heirloom that I’ve found myself to be the sole keeper of.
And it’s something I relentlessly just begged my mother to repeat until I had it memorized.
And this was during the 1950s.
But now my mother’s passed away, and I realized too late, of course, that I didn’t ask her where she got it from.
Oh, well, we love these.
Toity, poiple, black boys, sitting on a coib stone,
Choipin’ and boipin’ and eatin’ doity oith-woims.
And along came Moidle and her boyfriend, Hoyman.
They saw the Toity Poiple black boy sitting on a coib stone, and they were poitoibed.
Wow.
That’s quite a tongue twister you’ve got there.
We’re applauding her.
It is.
And, you know, my mother and her ancestors were all raised in Wisconsin, spent no time on the East Coast.
I haven’t either.
I have no idea where this came from, a movie or what,
But I have it stuck in my head now,
And I would really like to know where on earth it came from.
So you remember this from the 50s, as far back as the 50s then?
Yeah, yeah, it’s a while ago.
Yeah, it’s a while ago.
And your family, you’re the sole keeper of it.
Wow, that’s quite a heritage you’ve got there.
This is so cool.
Yeah, it’s definitely a characterization of the Brooklyn accent.
Toity, toit, and toit, you know, is the classic.
Betoyed.
Betoyed, or the old school New York accent,
Which became so stigmatized in New York City
That people don’t really talk like that anymore in New York.
But you do it pretty well for somebody from Eau Claire.
Yeah, yeah.
Toity, toit, and toit.
33rd and third.
I’ve many years of practice.
Toity, toit, and black boy sitting on the toit stone.
I do have some information for you.
I don’t know about the ultimate origin of this,
But I can give you a span of years
And a few little places that it’s popped up over the decades.
Oh, really?
Yeah.
Okay.
One of the more recent places that it appeared, believe it or not, was in a 1985 song by the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
Oh, no.
Yeah, yeah.
It was their second album called Freaky Stiley.
It was not a very successful album, but it’s in there.
And it’s similar to what you have to say.
30 dirty birds sitting on a black curb.
Notice it’s dirty birds instead of black birds.
And they’re not purple.
They’re just dirty.
30 dirty birds sitting on a curb chirping and burping and eating dirty earthworms.
And it goes on with some, along comes Herbie, different names too.
Herbie!
Yeah, and you’ll find throughout history that the names that are used tend to change a little bit too.
I find another one from 1987 in a newspaper.
It’s Herbie and his girlfriend Goidee, so Herbie and Goidee.
Hoidee and Goidee.
Yeah, Hoidee and Goidee, Herbie and Goidee.
But to make a long story short, the earliest use that we know of,
And there’s definitely more work to be done,
It’s in the copyright records of the Library of Congress.
There was a song published in 1944 called Toity Doity Boyds, 30 Dirty Birds.
And I haven’t seen the full lyrics for that song, nor have I heard it.
I could not find it to save my life.
But I bet you this is a version of this.
And I bet 1944 is not the earliest date because this characterization of the Brooklyn accent was common for ages.
And it shows up even in Bugs Bunny cartoons and in old kind of ethnic stereotypes in newspapers and like the kind of like one-off, one column of fiction that would be serialized there.
Yes.
Yeah.
So it’s got a life.
And like all folk rhymes, it tends to have many versions.
Yeah.
Like a game of telephone.
Yeah, exactly.
And so there’s not one definitive version that I know of.
Yes.
Yes.
Oh, I’m so pleased.
I’m pleased to know that it still has a life.
Yeah.
Yeah, and Cindy, you’ve contributed to it here.
Toity, toity, boys.
I guess I did as long as I didn’t, you know, alienate anyone.
I hope I was politically acceptable.
Oh, of course you were.
Definitely.
Definitely.
Toity, toity, boys.
Well, my mother would be pleased and very embarrassed that of all things she would be remembered for this.
Oh, yeah.
Wow.
There are worse things.
Yeah.
There are worse things than toity, toity, boys.
20 Poypal Black Boys.
20 Poypal Black Boys.
Oh, I’m just, I’m so pleased.
Thank you.
Our pleasure.
Thank you for calling.
It lives on.
Thank you so much.
It lives on, Cindy.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
I love that stuff.
Grant, we should link to the Red Hot Chili Peppers lyrics.
Sure.
And you can hear it on YouTube.
I’ve heard it on YouTube before.
There is a lot of heritage that comes with language.
There’s a lot of things passed from parents to children.
And if you’d like to share some of yours, send us email to words@waywordradio.org or call us 877-929-9673.
