Looking through my old physics textbook (Weber, White, and Manning—we knew who wrote our textbooks) from Penn State, I found this nonsense poem I had written in pencil in the back cover :
What a funny little bird a frog are.
Him got no tail at all, hardly.
When him walk, him hop.
When him sit, him sit on tail,
But him got no tail at all, hardly.
What a funny little bird a frog are!
I knew it so well, I could still recite it by heart after reading just the first few words, but I have no recollection of where I heard it or why I kept it. I Googled it and found it has many variations, which is the mark of a folk poem. Some knew it as a song. No one knew its origin. All said it was just something they heard as a child.
My guess is I heard it from Dick Stein, an older, married friend at Penn State on the GI Bill, who was also a chemistry major with the same goofy tastes as me. We sat together in the last row in almost every class simply because both “S” and “W” fall near the end of the alphabet. He died a few years ago, so it is too late to ask him.
I also learned from him another nonsense song, “I Love Bananas (Because They Got No Bones),” that still runs through my head whenever I eat a banana, which is often.
The frog song makes a philosophical point: A frog only seems queer when you think of it as a bird. Placing someone in a category often makes that person seem strange when they don’t belong in that category in the first place. The category is wrong, not the person. Many teenagers seem strange when we think of them as adults. The same goes for seniors, gays, conservatives, or any category we use for people.
YouTube has a fascinating, ultramodern version of the frog poem sung as a very complex four-part round: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHwwJkKp7Oo I had no idea of the artistic potential of a round. I thought “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” was as far as it could go.
The YouTube song has deservedly gotten over 100,000 views. and I put it on my favorites toolbar. Live graphics and text help to follow the singing. Their first line, and title, is, “What a queer bird the frog are,” and that is what you have to search for to bring up all of the many variations.
Their version goes:
What a queer bird the frog are
When he sit he stand (almost)
When he walk he fly (almost)
When he talk he cry (almost)
He ain’t got no sense (hardly)
He ain’t got no tail, either (hardly)
He sit on what he ain’t got (hardly)
I love it! even better than Dick Stein’s version. I kid you not.
RWalck@Verizon.net
Lansdowne-Aldan High School -- Class of 1954 
From Toronto Canada. I was googling silly poem my mother used to recite to me as a child. I wanted to find the origin of it and found your site. This is the version she used to say:
Oh what a funny fish a froggy are,
Him ain’t got no tail amost hardly
When him jump, him jump
And when him don’t jump
Him sits on his little tail
Which him ain’t got almost hardly
I was told this poem by my grandfather; a country boy from East Texas. His version went
what a funny little bird a frog are
Him ain’t got no tail at all almost hardly
and when him walks him hops
and when him don’t walk him sits on his little tail
which he ain’t got at all, almost hardly
He also told one that is credited to Dixon Lanier Merritt
His version is somewhat different from others I have read
It goes:
What a funny bird is a Pelican
Holds more in his beak than his belly can
Holds more in his beak than he can eat in a week
But I don’t know how in the Hellecan
Thank you. Mike. All these other versions seem to be made up by the people posting. Your version is the one that flows, and is the one that I heard from my father in the late 1940’s.
And the version told to me:
What a funny bird the frog are.
When him flies, him hops.
When him doesn’t fly, him sits on him little tail
And doesn’t move at all almost hardly.
My mother-in law told as
What a funny thing a frog are
he has no tail, almost hardly
when he sits, he jumps
when he jumps, he sits
on a tail he has, almost hardly.