Guest Posting: Canoedling

Poetry & Popular Culture correspondent Jeff Swenson writes in reporting (hubba hubba) on the racy poetry of canoedling from a time when modern love was reaching, er, something of a tipping point.

At least as early as the 1880s, “canoedling”—the canoe-based variant of “canoodleing”— was becoming tableau in American culture. The still-popular image of a man in the stern, paddling, and the woman reclining on cushions in the bow, often covered by a parasol, was commonly reproduced in magazines, calendars, advertisements and postcards. The mass production of wood-canvas canoes in the late 19th and early 20th centuries helped to make canoeing popular recreation, and young folk soon found the canoe was a remote—and sexually liberating—place for courtship.

Popular songs of the era particularly celebrated this courtship on water. Tin Pan Alley songwriters penned tunes such as "A Little Birch Canoe and You" (1918) and "Beautiful Ohio" (1918). Both songs are relatively chaste, the singer in “Birch Canoe” reflecting on the time when his “one and only dream comes true / The world is fair and fine, and all I want is mine / A little birch canoe and you.” “Ohio” is similarly nostalgic, the singer thinking back on a past love cultivated in the canoe:

Long, long ago, someone I know
Had a little red canoe
In it room for only two,
Love found its start, then in my heart
And like a flower grew

Harry Woods’ "Paddlin’ Madelin’ Home" (1925)—originally performed by ukulele legend Cliff “Ukulele Ike” Edwards—is much spicier. In a typical canoedling scene, the singer and his gal Madeline paddle at midnight, ignoring her father’s calls. They find “a spot where we’re alone / Oh! She never says ‘No’ / So I kiss her.” Of course, the irony of the song’s title is that the singer never does get Madeline paddled home, for after the couple canoedles, he paddles “for one mile” just to “drift back for two,” hoping for the time when she will say, “‘Throw your paddles away.’" Here's "Paddlin' Madelin' Home" in its entirety:

I love a girl named Madeline
I know she loves me, too
For ev'ry night the moon is bright
She rides in my canoe

At midnight on the river
I heard her father call,
But she don't care and I don't care
If we get back at all

'Cause when I'm paddlin' Madeline home
Gee! When I'm paddlin' Madeline home
First I drift with the tide,
Then pull for the shore
I hug her and kiss her
And paddle some more

Then I keep paddlin' Madeline home
Until I find a spot where we're alone
Oh! She never says "No"
So I kiss her and go
Paddlin' Madeline
Sweet sweet Madeline
Paddlin' Madeline home

'Cause when I'm paddlin' Madeline home
Gee! When I'm paddlin' Madeline home
First I kiss her a while
And when I get through
I paddle for one mile
And drift back for two

Then I keep paddlin' Madeline home
Until I find a spot where we're alone
Oh! If she'd only say "Throw your paddles away"
Paddlin' Madeline
Sweet sweet Madeline
Paddlin' Madeline home

You can listen to a recording of “Paddlin’ Madelin’ Home’” at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qtb4crdahg. Better yet, grab your uke and hit the river with your favorite gal before the summer is up.

Jeff Swenson writes from Garrettsville, Ohio, where he is Assistant Professor of English and Director of the Writing Center at Hiram College.

TRIVIA QUESTION: What famous cartoon character did Ukulele Ike voice?