Has anyone ever actually used the moon/june/spoon rhyme in a song unironically?

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

Was it ever actually that common? How did it become the ultimate symbol of cliched rhyming?

― Patrick (Patrick), Wednesday, 9 November 2005 22:59 (eighteen years ago) link

"By the Light of the Silvery Moon" - 1909.

By the light
Of the Silvery Moon
I want to spoon.
To my honey I'll croon love's tune.
Honey moon,
Keep a-shining in June.
Your silvery beams will bring love dreams.
We'll be cuddling soon
By the silvery moon.

― Rick Massimo (Rick Massimo), Wednesday, 9 November 2005 23:05 (eighteen years ago) link

Whoa, spooning and all. That's like the "Hot in Herre" of 1909.

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Wednesday, 9 November 2005 23:06 (eighteen years ago) link

I think it comes from the song "Shine On Harvest Moon" (1903)

"Shine on, shine on harvest moon
up in the sky.
I ain't had no lovin' since January, February, June
Or July,
snowtime ain't no time to stay outdoors and spoon
so shine on shine on harvest moon
for me and my gal."

Which, despite the reputation of it's rhymes is a great song. Listen to the Boswell sisters version - it's beautiful.

― everything, Wednesday, 9 November 2005 23:07 (eighteen years ago) link

I'm pretty sure there's a song on Dylan's Nashville Skyline that does.

― Alfred Soto (Alfred Soto), Wednesday, 9 November 2005 23:08 (eighteen years ago) link

I think it comes not from one or the other of these songs, but we're on the way to creating the preponderance the original question asks. (They're both great songs, by the way.)

― Rick Massimo (Rick Massimo), Wednesday, 9 November 2005 23:09 (eighteen years ago) link

Soft Machine's "Moon In June" has nary a trace of irony, but I can't remember if that line/rhyme is in the actual lyrics or not.

― sleeve (sleeve), Wednesday, 9 November 2005 23:09 (eighteen years ago) link

sure was a lot o' spoonin' in the 1900s. what happened from 1910-1919: felching?

― grimly fiendish (grimlord), Wednesday, 9 November 2005 23:10 (eighteen years ago) link

oh no, i remember now: mass fucking slaughter.

― grimly fiendish (grimlord), Wednesday, 9 November 2005 23:10 (eighteen years ago) link

I've seen a cartoon from the 30s with a similar moon/spoon rhyme (the cartoon is about eggs - i shit you not - and the song might be called "Spooning in a Spoon" or something like that. It takes place in a saucepan.)

Y'all know that "to spoon" didn't have the same meaning in the early 20th century as it does now, right?

― The Marquis of Cauliflower (noodle vague), Wednesday, 9 November 2005 23:13 (eighteen years ago) link

Enlighten us.

― jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 9 November 2005 23:15 (eighteen years ago) link

spoon (v.)

1715, "to dish out with a spoon," from spoon (n.). The meaning "court, flirt sentimentally" is first recorded 1831, from slang noun spoon "simpleton" (1799), a fig. use based on the notion of shallowness.

― The Marquis of Cauliflower (noodle vague), Wednesday, 9 November 2005 23:17 (eighteen years ago) link

Yeah. that's what they said they were doing.

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Wednesday, 9 November 2005 23:20 (eighteen years ago) link

Well yeah, I'm sure the use of the word in popular song implied a lot more, just like it wasn't really Your Hand that the Beatles wanted to hold. But its meaning was innocent enough.

― The Marquis of Cauliflower (noodle vague), Wednesday, 9 November 2005 23:24 (eighteen years ago) link

Wow, that cartoon does exist.

― The Marquis of Cauliflower (noodle vague), Wednesday, 9 November 2005 23:27 (eighteen years ago) link

sure was a lot o' spoonin' in the 1900s. what happened from 1910-1919: felching?

The white man engaged in humpy pumpy and the black man had some boogie woogie.

― Cunga (Cunga), Wednesday, 9 November 2005 23:33 (eighteen years ago) link

But surely there's a million rhymes out there that are more obvious and overused? I mean it's kind of a challenge to use "spoon" at the end of a line and not sound like an idiot. Or maybe that *is* the point (i.e. moon/june/spoon is bad because it is gratuitous and silly, not because it is overused)??

― Patrick (Patrick), Thursday, 10 November 2005 00:24 (eighteen years ago) link

I think the point of the critical trope is that it's lazy, looking for the first 2 rhymes you can find for "moon." And also, "spoon" is such a dated term that it was seen as awful and lazy because you're going for the easy rhyme rather than something that actually ahd any relevance.

― Rick Massimo (Rick Massimo), Thursday, 10 November 2005 00:41 (eighteen years ago) link

I'm pretty sure there's a song on Dylan's Nashville Skyline that does.

I think it's on John Wesley Harding...I'll Be Your Baby Tonight.

― kornrulez6969 (TCBeing), Thursday, 10 November 2005 01:01 (eighteen years ago) link

Yep, "I'll Be Yr Baby Tonight" from "John Wesley Harding":

Close your eyes, close the door,
You don't have to worry any more.
I'll be your baby tonight.

Shut the light, shut the shade,
You don't have to be afraid.
I'll be your baby tonight.

Well, that mockingbird's gonna sail away,
We're gonna forget it.
That big, fat moon is gonna shine like a spoon,
But we're gonna let it,
You won't regret it.

Kick your shoes off, do not fear,
Bring that bottle over here.
I'll be your baby tonight.

― shookout (shookout), Thursday, 10 November 2005 01:16 (eighteen years ago) link

I love to sing-a
About the moon-a and the June-a and the spring-a
I love to sing-a
'Bout the sky of blue-a, or a tea for two-a
anything-a with a swing-a to an I love you-a
I love-a to I love-a to sing!

― monkeybutler, Thursday, 10 November 2005 01:33 (eighteen years ago) link

There's a great swing tune from the 30s called "There Isn't Any Limit To My Love" which uses these rhymes really well. It begins:

There's a limit to the silver in a spoon,
the temperature in june,
the glamour of the moon,
but there isn't any limit to my love for you.

Reads sappy but when delivered in an ice cold and dry manner it works. I have a version by Carroll Gibbons & The Savoy Hotel Orpheans with Anne Lenner singing. So good.

― Drew Daniel (Drew Daniel), Thursday, 10 November 2005 01:37 (eighteen years ago) link

I feel confident that the answer to this question is "Stephin Merritt," although I can't actually think of a moment when he actually does it. He would, though. Or he should.

― brittle-lemon (brittle-lemon), Thursday, 10 November 2005 02:10 (eighteen years ago) link

"Bye June" by Smashing Pumpkins

bye june
i'm going to the moon
it better be by june
'cause i'm going to the moon

so june
you'd better make it soon
i hope you make it, june
'cause i'm going to the moon

bye june

bye june
i'm going to the moon
i hope you make it soon
'cause i'm waiting on this moon

bye june
i hope you make it two
i'm wishing you're there, too
i hope you make it, june

bye bye, june
hope you make it to the moon

― Caught Red Handed at Sam's Hofbrau (Bent Over at the Arclight), Thursday, 10 November 2005 02:21 (eighteen years ago) link

xpost re Merritt: I believe it's "With Whom to Dance": "Moons in June, I've given up on that stuff..." But I'm pretty sure he was being ironic or at least self-conscious about it, i.e. he's referencing it as a stock cliché.

― Sundar (sundar), Thursday, 10 November 2005 02:24 (eighteen years ago) link

> I love to sing-a
> About the moon-a and the June-a and the spring-a
> I love to sing-a
> 'Bout the sky of blue-a, or a tea for two-a
> anything-a with a swing-a to an I love you-a
> I love-a to I love-a to sing!

Is this a Fall track I haven't heard?

― Bill E (bill_e), Thursday, 10 November 2005 03:51 (eighteen years ago) link

Heh heh...That's "I Love To Sing-A" from some '30s Warner Brothers musical, I think. Revived (to hilarious effect) in the debut episode of South Park, "Cartman Gets An Anal Probe". Strangely, although I know it's a cliched Tin Pan Alley rhyme, that song and the Dylan one are the only two instances I personally know of.

And no, neither "moon" nor "June" appear in that Robert Wyatt song.

― Myonga Von Bontee (Myonga Von Bontee), Thursday, 10 November 2005 16:51 (eighteen years ago) link

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.