We went to the Planned Parenthood used book sale in Santa Barbara this weekend and came home with some interesting books. One of the things I found was an old LDS hymnal in Spanish titled
Himnos de Sión. As I was looking through it, I came across a song titled "Lavémonos los Dientes." Here are the lyrics in Spanish:
Los Dientes no me lavaré, Un niño exclamó
Ya me lavé, ya me peiné, con eso me bastó.
Mas en su boca se oyó un grito de placer,
Y los microbios sin temor, salieron a comer.
Dijeron, llenos de placer: Aquí hay buen hogar
Entre sus dientes sin lavar, podremos festejar.
Oyó el niño de su plan y pronto se lavó,
A los microbios él mató, ni uno escapó.
It took a little bit of searching, but I found an
old post on Times and Seasons that contains the lyrics to the original English version (titled "Tooth Bugs"), which I'm posting here so all the gringos out there don't have to be stuck reading my own translation.
I do not want to clean my teeth, a little boy once cried,
I’ve washed my face and combed my hair, That's quite enough, he sighed;
Some tooth bugs hiding in his mouth, Began to dance in glee;
At last we’ve found a home,” they cried, We do not have to flee!
This boy has such a nice warm mouth, We’ll linger here all night;
His teeth are filled with bits of food, We’ll eat with all our might!
The small boy heard their shout of glee, Get out of there, he cried;
He grabbed his brush and scrubbed and scrubbed ‘Till every tooth bug died.
Two questions: how did this song ever make into the hymn book? And why did they ever take it out?
4 comments:
I bet missionaries were embarrassed when visitantes came to church and they played this song- like "In Our Lovely Deseret."
I laughed aloud when I read your two questions so thanks for that.
I would have enjoyed singing that song, to be honest. They always gotta mess with the classics.
I LOVE this!! So hilarious! I'm going to memorize it and sing it to by 7 year old son!!!! So awesome!
Just so ya know...I learned that song in Primary when I was little...and better yet...Grandma has visual aids/pictures to go along with the song...I still remember the giant toothbrush she found and brought to the Tuesday afternoon meeting of Primary when she taught us that song. In the day... there were mid-week meetings that we had lessons and activities where it was appropriate to sing such songs...it wasn't used on Sunday...
If you like I could sing it to you...I have it memorized!
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