Song Help Request My Dog Has Fleas

Mike $

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Am I supposed to be familiar with this melody? How does the rest of the song go? Sometimes someone asks how a Uke is tuned and the response is "My Dog Has Fleas?"...yes I usually see it written with a question mark. What song does this come from. I have searched the web and there are so many different versions containing this that it must have come from somewhere that was once in our collective consciousness, but has drifted off somehow. Many people are making their own songs using these words, but the melody is different in many of them. I would assume that the notes GCEA would match up with the phrase "my dog has fleas", but it usually doesn't. So does anyone know the origin of this? If so, how certain are you of its legitimacy?

If you could attach a video or some sound source of the original, I would appreciate it. Thanks in advance
 
I (probably like many people) know it only as a ukulele tuning reference and I've probably repeated it to countless people, none of whom seemed to understand it was a reference to anything. Once you hear the sentence over the notes re-entrant root notes of a ukulele though, it fits very naturally, and it works great as a tool to remember what the notes are supposed to sound like.
 
I'm glad I'm not the only one baffled by this. I have no idea where that bit of melody & words comes from (if it ever appeared anywhere), and even if someone does know the relative notes, and can replicate them exactly on their four uke strings, then unless they have perfect pitch they will probably be out of tune with everyone else.
 
Check it out:

1939



I'm pretty sure I've never seen this scene, but it's VERY familiar to whatever I have seen from a similar era. Gracie Allen was so cute!
 
A few years back I heard Jake perform a piece he wrote based on this. I've seen him several times since and have not heard it again. It was an interesting piece.
 
"My dog Has Fleas" isn't really as random as you think it is.

Uku is like fleas and Lele is to jump around. Ukulele means jumping fleas, because that's the sound it makes when plucked, maybe like a flea circus, high pitched and small sounding, etc

So you're holding and playing a Jumping Flea Instrument, that's tuned to open Am7, G C E A, which, when plucked, according to Hawaiians, sounds like jumping fleas, and so "my dog has fleas" just sounds better than "my girl has fleas", "my mom has fleas", or "my okole has fleas", all of which may also be true.
 
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I am aware that many people have been sucked into the overly cute story of the jumping flea, but that isn't the only story behind the name. Here is another that I prefer to believe because jumping fleas sounds pretty stupid to me.

To me this is a much more likely origin for the word Ukulele: Hawaii’s last monarch, Queen Lili’uokalani has said that the word ukulele is a combination of words that translates into “the gift that came here.” The root of the word, “uku” is a gift or reward. Lele means “to come.”

Furthermore, if you go on Google Translate, you will find that the English Ukulele translate to 'ukulele in Hawaiian. Now, separate it into two words in Hawaiian and you get 'uku and lele which translate to Free Shipping. Who wouldn't send a uke to someone especially if shipping were free? Check it out.

Hard sell.

Google Hawaiian is hands down, by far, the worst language Google attempts to translate.

In all likelihood, that was the Queen trying to romanticize the origin of the name of an instrument that had gained greater popularity and was a more important part of the Hawaiian culture than it had previously been expected to be. The jumping flea name was perhaps an embarrassment, and an even bigger embarrassment if it was the name used to make fun of a silly dancing haole who jumped around whilst playing it.

It's likely that the name came from comparison to the Guitar, which even today most of the world sees as a manly or masculine and cool instrument compared to the ukulele.

The Madeiran and Portuguese Instruments that Hawaiians saw had guitar strings and were tuned lower or sounded lower, like the ones you see today.

Perhaps when Hawaiians tried replicating it, they laughed at themselves and the high pitch..

Or perhaps the Hawaiian musicians more admired guitar. It was more common in the early days for Hawaiians to play guitar, and perhaps, like today, ukulele was the name used to make a bit of a joke about it in comparison with the guitar.

Perhaps, even, ukulele was only coined after the guitar gained popularity
 
Perhaps but in all likelihood, perhaps not. Who knows? At this point, it is unclear, but people love to jump on the bandwagon and claim ridiculous things no matter how silly. Popular mythos is commonly mistaken for proof.

But it seems clear that "My Dog Has Fleas" isn't from a song, it is just a bunch of words, that alone tell you nothing about the tuning of a uke, unless you have previously memorized the tones associated with the phrase. You might as well say - Gifts Come Every Afternoon. Then at least you could take the first letter of each word and learn the notes. But it's not as silly as My Dog Has Fleas, so it will never catch on.

It's really not as random as you think

It's pretty well researched, and well known throughout the Hawaiian Islands. You're taking to Native Hawaiians whose families have played Uke for generations and handed down techniques and stories. Everything Hawaiian is handed down Orally. Making things up isn't Hawaiian, neither is jumping on bandwagons or lying about things. There would be no Hawaiian culture were that the case.

And not just from Hawaiians but from Locals, who were immigrating at the time these instruments first arrived

And the point of My Dog Has Fleas is to be able to tune and play your Uke without even knowing what GCEA means. That's how Hawaiians played Guitar as well, by ear and sound and memory and feeling and heart.

Even today, most Hawaiians learn how to play the Uke without knowing the names of chords or strings.

Thus, "gifts come every afternoon" has no use in Hawaiian ukulele learning or playing.

My dog has fleas, by contrast, is a melodic saying corresponding to the notes of a song, when sung, and all one needs to do in order to play and sing the ukulele is learn how to sing "My Dog Has Fleas", as once you learn a song you can easily sing it the exact same way every time you open your mouth, wherever you are, making your ukulele easily tunable.

But the trick is someone has to teach you what "My Dog Has Fleas" sounds like.

And the fact that phrase was chosen specifically points quite clearly to the well-known relationship between that and the jumping flea ukulele

On another note, almost everything ever spoken or named by Hawaiians, especially in ancient times and these early post contact days, has Kauna, which is to say that almost everything is a Double Entendre. They were actually scary genius when it comes to Communication and Music. Kauna was necessity, due to the strict kapu laws they lived under that had very harsh punishments, as well as for social expectations and cultural norms, and also for the various beings of the Spirit World, many of whom listen and take action based on what's spoken, and for the existence of extremely powerful type of sorcerers and like witches who practiced a very potent and deadly form of black magic.

So, it's actually very highly probable that the name Ukulele was selected to have one meaning that's proper and royaly appropriate, whilst having a second meaning that's irrelevant and silly or naughty. And for all a Queen would know, it had one meaning, but to common people it had another
 
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You needn't get nasty or petty. It's not very Hawaiian or in the spirit of the Ukulele

I'm just a Hawaiian, who knows all about Hawaiian culture.

That's how I was taught, and most of the people I learned from or played with experienced the same thing.

Hawaiians learn the ukulele when very young. My dog has fleas is the Hawaiian Tuner. Alot of old style Hawaiians don't know any Chord names, and a lot of the Hawaiian slack key players don't know a lot of the technical terms or string tuning names, it's all from oral learning and hands on experience and learned by ear.
 
Tenzen wrote: <<...Even today, most Hawaiians learn how to play the Uke without knowing the names of chords or strings....>>

I find this hard to believe
 
Tenzen wrote: <<...Even today, most Hawaiians learn how to play the Uke without knowing the names of chords or strings....>>

I find this hard to believe

It's not something you'd ever run into. You simply would never be around any of them. But then, I suppose that generation is pretty old by now, many years probably gone. But that was every generation before that too. But if they live in the kuahiwi without internet and mobile phone, they're learning the traditional way

Curious, in your mind, what are Hawaiians doing in the pre-digital Era to tune their instruments? Coconut tuners rigged up by the Professor and Gilligan, with batteries put together by the Swiss Family Robinson?

How many Hawaiians on the beach today, who live on the land, have extra lithium ion cr2025 batteries lying around, do you suppose?

It's irrefutable that Hawaiians did everything by ear. That's why there were so many different tunings, and nothing sounded like the instruments when they were first introduced
 
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