Examples Of The Children's Cheer "Rock The Boat"

Edited by Azizi Powell

This is Part II of a two part series on the 1974 Disco song "Rock The Boat" and children's "Rock The Boat" cheers.

This post features video & text examples of "Rock The Boat" cheers and also provides some comments about the structure of those cheers.

Part I showcases the song "Rock The Boat" as recorded by The Hues Corporation (1973).

Click http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2013/05/the-hues-corporation-rock-boat-video.html for Part I.

The content of this post is presented for cultural, entertainment, and aesthetic purposes.

All copyrights remain with their owners.

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THE STRUCTURE OF "ROCK THE BOAT" CHILDREN'S CHEERS
"Rock The Boat" children's cheers demonstrate the influence that foot stomping cheers have had on the structure of cheers that are performed by children's cheerleading squads & children's athletic teams. These cheers are composed using a call & response structure that is quite different from the older "mainstream" "Go Team Go" type of cheerleader cheers.

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FEATURED VIDEOS
(These videos are posted in chronological order with the oldest video posted first.)

Video #1: Aniya Rocks The Boat :-)


ti55, Uploaded on Mar 16, 2008
-snip-
This is an example of the "She Slides" sub-category of "Rock The Boat" cheers.

A transcription of this video is given as Example #1 below.

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Video #2: ROCK THE BOAT



RainbowBrite895, Uploaded on Jul 3, 2008

haha this is my softball team doing one of our cheers
-snip-
Examples of cheers from this video's viewer comment thread are found below. Because those examples are very similar to the cheer that is chanted in that video, I didn't transcribe that video. This "Rock The Boat" cheer is from that cheer's "Bang Bang Choo Choo Train" sub-category. It appears from my review of these cheers that examples include either the "She slides" or "the Bang Bang" verses, however there may be examples of this cheer that include both of these verses.

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Video #3: Bulldogs Rock the Boat (cheer)



mlisa73, Uploaded on Dec 23, 2011

The girls cheering.
-snip-
This cheer is from the "bang bang choo choo train" category of
"Rock The Boat" cheers. A sub-category of that cheer includes the line "bang bang and pull that spirt". Examples of these cheers are found below.

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Keira & aliyah rock the boat cheer



shawn cavanagh, Published Sep 27, 2012
-snip-
This is an example of the "She Slides" sub-category of "Rock The Boat" cheers.

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EXAMPLES OF "ROCK THE BOAT" CHEERS
(These examples are from the featured videos presented above or their viewer comment threads. They aren't presented in any particular order.)

Example #1: ROCK THE BOAT
Rock the boat. Don't tip it over.
Rock the boat. Don't tip it over.
Hey, Aniya. "Hey what?"
Hey, Aniya. "Hey what?"
Can you rock the boat? "No way."
Can you rock the boat?! "Ok."
She slides. She slides. She do The Butterfly.
She dips. She dips. She shakes her little hips!
-ti55, Mar 16, 2008, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9QuTsAtQPY
-snip-
This is my transcription of the video given above as "Video #1". This cheer is composed using the traditional foot stomping cheer structure. That The Hues Corporations' 1974 record "Rock The Boat" is the source of this cheer is clearly indicated by the "rock the boat/don't tip it over" line.

Furthermore, the group asking the girl to do something, and the girl's first response being "no way" marks this as what I refer to as a "command/compliance" type of [dance style] foot stomping cheer. Click http://www.cocojams.com/content/command-compliance-foot-stomping-cheers for information & examples of command/compliance foot stomping cheers.

"The Butterfly" is a dance of Jamaican origin that was picked up & integrated into American R&B/Hip Hop dance repertoire of the 1990s. A number of mainstream cheers include a referent to doing "The Butterfly". There are also some references to "The Butterfly" dance in certain foot stomping cheers.

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Example #2: ROCK THE BOAT
I learned

"Hey ____!"
"Hey what?"
"Hey ____!"
"Hey what?"
"Can you rock the boat?"
"I might"
"Can you rock the boat?"
"Alright!"
"Rock the boat, Don't tip it over,
Rock the boat, Don't tip it over"
-TheKaitybugs, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9QuTsAtQPY, 2012

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Example #3: ROCK THE BOAT
Rock the boat and don’t tip it over
Rock the boat and don’t tip it over
My name is ___
(rock the boat)
I cheer for bulldogs
(rock the boat)
And if I didn’t*
(rock the boat)
it goes a little something like this
bang bang get it get it
Ah!
And pull that spirit.

[continue with the next girl who says the same words except her name]
-mlisa73, Uploaded on Dec 23, 2011, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKGOoqGcWvw
-snip-
This is my transcription of the cheer given in Video #3.
* "And if I didn't" is usually given as “and when I do). Those words make more sense in the context of this cheer.

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Example #4: ROCK THE BOAT
this is how we do it at my school:

rock the boat dont tip it over
rock the boat dont tip it over
my name is __
yeah!
im feelin fine!
yeah!
u mess with me
yeah!
ill blow ur mind
so bang bang choo choo train
u look at me and i do my thang
no recces pieces no butter cup
i kno karate i kno kung fu
u mess with ill mes with u!

i kno its tottaly off to wat everyone else is sayin but thats wat we sing on the bus all the time.
-slimeshady100, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9QuTsAtQPY, 2010

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Example #4: ROCK THE BOAT
[Editor's note: I assigned numbers for the lines to provide an text analysis of this example. The group's lines are indicated by "G" in brackets. The soloist's lines are indicated by "S" in brackets. The entire group's lines are indicated by G&S in brackets.

we do it like this for cheerleading

1. rock the boat dont tip it over [G&S]
2. rock the boat dont tip it over [G&S]
3. hey_____, [G]
4. hey what? [S]
5. hey_____, [G]
6. hey what? [S]
7. can u rock the boat? [G]
8.no way [S]
9. can u rock the boat? [G]
10. Ok [S]
11. she slides she slides *
12. she gets on a horse and rides,
13. she dips she dips,
14. she shakes her little hips
15. she wants you and you
16. to rock the boat too
-Brooke Esposito, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9QuTsAtQPY, 2011

*It seems that this line until the end of the cheer might be chanted only by the Group but those lines might also be chanted by the Group plus the soloist.
-snip-
One significant difference between traditional & some mainstream "Rock The Boat" cheers is whether the group commands (or demands that the soloist) do something or whether the group asks the soloist to do something. If that action is demanded of the soloist or asked of her creates a different tone for those cheers and also conveys an entirely different cultural message. It seems to me that these are crucial differences.

In traditional examples of these cheers, the fact that the girl initially refuses to do what is demanded of her may demonstrate that a value is placed on being independent and not (immediately) acceding to orders (or expectations?) that others have for you. In contrast, in mainstream examples of these cheers, the soloist's refusal to do what is asked of her comes across as rude or bad mannered.

It's possible that "Can you rock the boat" could be interpreted as "Are you able to rock the boat?" However, in the context of that cheer, the soloist's surly answer of "No way" doesn't mean "There's no way that I'm able to do that action that you ask me can I do." Instead, "No way" means that "There's no circumstances which would make me [no reason why] I would do what you ask. The difference between that and the traditional meaning may be subtle, but I think that a difference does exist.

That said, I'm not certain that the girls who chanted/chant the traditional "demanding" version of this cheer and other "command/compliance" cheers consciously recognize the message that the cheer conveys with thpse "command" or demand and refusal to comply lines.

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RELATED LINK
Visit http://www.cocojams.com/content/foot-stomping-cheers-0 for additional examples of "Rock The Boat" cheers. The earliest dated examples that I've collected of those cheers are from the 1980s.)

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This concludes Part II of this series.

My thanks to all those who are featured in these videos and all those whose cheer examples are presented in this post.

Thank you to for visiting pancocojams.

Visitor comments are welcome.