"Candy Girl" - R&B Record, Hand Clap Rhyme, & Foot Stomping Cheer (with an excerpt from Kyra D. Gaunt's Book "The Games Black Girls Play")

Edited by Azizi Powell

This pancocojams post showcases the R&B record "Candy Girl". This post also presents an excerpt from Kyra D. Gaunt's 2006 book The Games Black Girl's Play: Learning The Ropes From Double-Dutch To Hip-Hop that discusses discusses the concept of "bridge" hand clap rhymes and focuses on a 1990s hand clap version of New Edition's 1983 R&B song "Candy Girl" as an example of Black girls cultural expression.

Text (word only) examples of three "Candy Girls" foot stomping cheers are also included in this post.

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

All copyrights remain with their owners.

Thanks to the composers and performers of the R&B song "Candy Girl". Thanks also to Kyra D. Gaunt for her research and writing about Black girls musical expressions and thanks to all the contributors of rhyme examples and all those who are quoted in this post.

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INFORMATION ABOUT THE SONG "CANDY GIRL" & SONG LYRICS
�Candy Girl� was the first single New Edition released in 1983 from their debut album of the same name. The song was recorded in 1982 after the group was given studio time by producer Maurice Starr following a second-place finish in a Boston talent show. The members of New Edition were between the ages of 13-15 when this song was recorded. The single was released on February 24, 1983, and while it only peaked at #46 on the Billboard Hot 100, it hit #1 on both the R&B Singles chart and the UK Singles chart.

Lyrically, New Edition describes their girls as being �sweet as candy� and this song�s style was inspired by the 1970 hit �ABC� by The Jackson 5.

[LYRICS- CANDY GIRL]

[Ralph Tresvant rapping]
My girl's like candy, a candy treat
She knocks me high up off my feet
She's so fine, as can be
I know this girl is meant for me

[Ralph singing]
Candy girl...
You are my world
When you're with me
You brighten up my day

All I know
When I'm with you
You make me feel so good, through and through
The way you walk, and the way you talk
You always look so good, you make forget my thoughts

[Ricky Bell]
Do you really love me?
Don't you really care?
Do you really need me
And will you always be there?

[Ralph]
Every night and every day
I'm always thinking of you in every way
All I know
When I'm with you
You make me feel so good
Through and through

Candy girl, you are my world
[RB] You're everything, everything, everything to me

[RT] Candy girl, all I want to say
[Bobby Brown] I need your love, each and everyday!

[Ralph talking]
Hey fellas! (What?)
Check out Mike and Bobby's little lady!
(ooooh-weeeee!)

[Michael Bivins]
Well, check out Ricky and Ralph's!
(oooooh-weeee!)

[Bobby]
What about Ronnie's!

[Ronnie DeVoe]
She's bad, I know she's bad!

[Michael]
She walks so fast, she looks so sweet
She makes my heart just skip a beat

[Bobby]
My girl's the best and that's no lie
She tells me that I'm her only guy!

[Ricky]
That might be true, but my girl's a joy
She don't play around, she's right to the point!

[Ralph rapping]
My girl's like candy, a candy treat
She knocks me high up off my feet

[Ralph singing]
Oh, candy
You look so sweet

Oh, candy!
You're a special treat

[Break]

[RT] Candy girl, you are my world
[B] I need your love, each and everyday

[RT] Candy girl, all I want to say
[RB] You're everything, everything, everything to me

[RT] Candy girl, you are my world
[B] I need your love, each and everyday

[RT] Candy girl, all I want to say
[RB] You're everything, everything, everything to me

[RT] Candy girl...
[B] I need it, need it, need it, need it, need it everyday!

[RT] Candy girl..."


Source: https://genius.com/New-edition-candy-girl-lyrics
-snip-
"Candy Girl" was written by Maurice Starr. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candy_Girl_(New_Edition_song)

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SHOWCASE VIDEO: Candy Girl official video New Edition 1983



dakwa4life, Published on Mar 19, 2009

Official Video (1983)

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BOOK EXCERPT
From The Games Black Girl's Play: Learning The Ropes From Double-Dutch To Hip-Hop by Kyra D. Gaunt (New York University Press), 2006; chapter: "Mary Mack Dressed In Black: The Earliest Formation Of A Popular Music", sub-title "Hand Clap Games"

[page 68]
"The lyrics of the musical games black girls play circulate between the dominant three types of play found in girls' games. For example, the lyric and melody of "Mary Mack" occur as a handclapping game-song and as a jump rope chant.
Additionally, these same lyrics and melodies operate within a wider musical system that includes the blues and other types of popular music typically associated with adults.

The partner style of handclapping, with only two girls, gradually expands o a type of handclapping game known as "bridges". The most popularly known handclapping bridge is "Tweedle deedle dee", based on the melody and lyrics of "Rockin Robin," Michael Jackson's first single as a solo artists, and his first departure in 1971, from the Jackson Five on Motown Records.

[...]


[page 72]
The author describes African American girls performing rhymes that they knew for a new television program in Boston, Mass. (October 18, 1999)
..."Lights, camera, action!" The girls began chanting the lyrics and melody of the opening lines of "Candy Girl". I recognized the song immediately and was titillated at discovering a game-song that showed a relationship between recent popular music culture and the ongoing tradition of creating girls games from it as a resource.

The girls patted hand with the girl to either side of them, creating an alternating current of contact around the circle. I was witnessing one of the latest bridges based on the early 1980s "bubblegum soul" of the

[page 73]
group New Edition. The game would have preceded these eight-and nine-year-old girls by ten years: they were born in 1991 and 1992. ("Candy Girl" was New Edition's first single hit, and it became the title of their first album releasd in 1983.)

[...]

The girls' handclapping, bridge version of "Candy Girl" highlighted the borrowing of popular dances from the recent past: i featured the Jamaican Pepperseed, marked by the alternating movements of the torso from left to right on one two three and (hold) four / one two three and (hold) four. With arms spread out to the side, the movements of the torso on one two three and (hold) four transferred wavy currents of motion from one arm to the other, causing the arms to look and feel like they were treading water. Th game featured the late 1980s dance the Running Man, popularized by bad boy Bobby Brown of New Edition. This dance involved the funky locomotion of lunging forward on alternate feet while thrusting your chest out and pulling your fists back by your sides. The dance was all about subdivided timing of strides marking the offbeats between one and two and three and four, while your feet executed a sliding action and a slight scuffling sound after each forward lunge, emulating a running man (or woman).

I recognized one other dance within the formula of "Candy Girl": the "Fight" from the early 1980s, which accompanied a chant about Mike Tyson. It involved mimicking a flurry of jabs, hooks, and punches times to the downbeats of the music, and I often deployed it when I was on the dance floor at a club or party with a guy who was getting toofriendly-too close for comfort. (These were the guys that wanted to turn even a fast song into an intimate slow dance or grind.)

[page 74]

The girls had fit these three dances, and others, into the kinetic orality accompanying the lyrics. They repeated the game-song for the cameras.

Can-dy Girl/You are my world
Look-so sweet/ Spe-cial treat

Following this was a section of show-and-tell, an embodied call-and-response of a sort, where the conjunction between word and the body, between individuals and the collective, became apparent. As they sand of doing the Janet Jackson, they danced the Pepperseed. As they sang of doing the Mike Tyson, the did the Fight. As they sang of doing the Bobby Brown, they did the Running Man.

This is the way you do - the Janet // Jackson ["Pepperseed"]
This is the way you do - the Mike // Tyson ["the Fight"]
This is the way you do - the Bobby // Brown ["the Running Man"]

Calling out the names of prominent African American stars that they would have been familiar with as popular icons in the media, the girls dramatized a salient feature of these figures' personas, or image, through kinetic orality. One could assert that the girls were performing the communal discourse, as well as a musical grapevine of blackness, through the body and their in-body formulas.

Traditional African American children's games revolve around dance, and its influence can be seen in almost all physical activities. Song and dance are an integral part of storytelling, for example. Cheerleading becomes dance, double-dutch jumping becomes dance, and so do the agile exertions of athletes from the end-zone to the hoop. Play serves as the training for performance. Through interaction, we learn fair play. That is, we learn the ethics of a culture and we learn to identify good play, which is similar to learning how to recognize good performance, The determining factors have to do with personal creativity, styling, and aesthetics. Thus, play becomes performance (Malone 1996 in Caponi 1999, 226"."

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THREE FOOT STOMPING CHEER EXAMPLES OF "CANDY GIRL"
CANDY GIRL
All: Candy Girl.
All my world.
Look so sweet.
Special treat.
Soloist #1: This is the way we do the Bounce.
Candy Girl.
Group: Do the Bounce. Do the Bounce.
Soloist #1: All my world.
Group: Do the Bounce. Do the Bounce.
Soloist #1: Look so sweet.
Group: Do the Bounce. Do the Bounce.
Soloist #1: Special treat
Group: Do the Bounce. Do the Bounce.
All: Candy Girl.
All my world.
Look so sweet.
Special treat.
Soloist #2: This is the way we do the Snake.
Candy Girl.
Group: Do the bounce do the Snake.
Soloist #2: All my world.
Group: Do the Snake. Do the Snake.
Soloist #2: Look so sweet.
Group: Do the Snake. Do the Snake.
--T.M.P.(African American female; memories of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in the mid 1980s; audio recording 1992; In 2000 I observed members of Braddock, Pennsylvania's chapter of Alafia Children�s Ensemble perform this cheer with the exact same beat, and tune, and the same words except for then popular R&B/Hip Hop dances)

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CANDY GIRL (Version #2)
does anybody know candy girl? little girls i know still play it!

candy girl, oh my world
look so sweet, special treat
this is the way you do the "wop"(or the "snake", or whatever dance is cute that u know the name of)
candy girl, say wop,wop
oh my world, say wop, wop
look so sweet, say wop,wop
special treat, say wop,wop(and then move on to the next dance)
- bitsy196 (African American female); http://www.greekchat.com/gcforums/showthread.php?t=4123&page=4; �remember when?�; 6-25-2003 [no location given]

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CANDY GIRL (Version #3)
Candy girl,
all my world,
looks so sweet,
candy treat
This is the way
we do the (insert a dance)
Candy girl
Do the (dance) the (dance)
All my world
Do the (dance) the (dance)
Looks so sweet
Do the (dance) the (dance)
Candy treat
Do the (dance) the (dance)
(Repeat)
Directions:
This one involves the whole participation of the group at once. You repeat it for as many dances as you have until you can�t think of anymore.
-Jennifer (Korean), undergraduate female college student University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania ; remembrances of rhymes she performed when she was 8-12 years ; (she indicates that she learned this from African American girls); collected in 2005 via email to Azizi Powell in 2005
-snip-
Notice that the lyrics for these "Candy Girl" foot stomping cheers are very similar to the lyrics for the hand clapping/imitative motions example that was given in Kyra D. Gaunt's book The Games Black Girls Play.

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