Pop goes the weasel
Most of us know the words to nursery rhymes – but few people track down what they originally meant.
It’s not always innocent. “Pop goes the weasel” is a song about poverty – and it can be very precisely located in North London.
- Up and down the city road,
- In and out the Eagle,
- That’s the way the money goes,
- Pop! goes the weasel.
Well the City Road is in Islington. And the Eagle is a well known pub on City Road. So ‘That’s the way the money goes’ – spending it on beer and, probably, gambling. Or, possibly, women.
As for the weasel going ‘pop’ – well, ‘popping’ a thing meant taking it to the pawnbroker’s as security for a loan till the end of the week, when you were short of ready cash. Again, it’s a song about money. And the weasel? Weasel and stoat – coat, a little piece of Cockney rhyming slang.
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