Four White Horses

We have been singing a silly song in our Kindermusik Village class called, Four White Horses. There has been some interesting discussion behind the meaning of the words. I found the following posted by a fellow Kindermusik educator and thought I would share it here.

At University our early childhood music professor discussed this song withus. I remember it only because the lyrics seemed so impossible to decipherat the time!

In college, here were the words we were singing (a regional variation Isuppose)
“Four white horses, on the river.Hey, hey, hey up tomorrow.Up tomorrow is a rainy day.Come on and join our shadow play.Shadow play is a ripe banana.Up tomorrow is a rainy day.”

However, our professor shared the following with us as the more traditional Caribbean words.
Basically, she deciphered it as this to us…

Four white horses, down the river(as in four white horses traveling down the river on a barge or something)

Hey, hey, hey, up tomorrow(as in Hey, come back up!)
Up tomorrow is a rainy day(Come up! Tomorrow is going to be a rainy day!)
Come on up to the shallow bay(self evident. Come up river to where it’s safe)
Shallow bay is a ripe banana(ripe banana as in, nothing is better than a ripe banana! In other words,life is good in shallow bay!)
Up tomorrow is a rainy day(come up river to where it’s safe)