Genre Children's | Writer(s) Traditional | |
"Apples and Bananas" or "Oopples and Boo-noo-noos" is a traditional North American children's song that plays with the vowels of words. The first verse usually begins unaltered:
The following verses replace most or all vowels with one given vowel sound, usually each of the long vowels sounds of ⟨a⟩ (/eɪ/), ⟨e⟩ (/iː/), ⟨i⟩ (/aɪ/), ⟨o⟩ (/oʊ/), and ⟨u⟩ (/uː/), although potentially any English vowel can be used. For example:
Raffi, a Canadian musician, released a version of the song on his album One Light, One Sun (1985). Raffi's version only changed the vowels in "eat", "apples", and the last 2 syllables of "bananas". The song was described as one of several "old favorites" by the Ottawa Citizen in 1984. The song was also sung on three early episodes of the children's television program Barney & Friends, as well as on Rock with Barney, the final video in the predecessor series Barney & the Backyard Gang. As with Raffi, Barney's version also only changed the vowels in "eat", "apples", and the last 2 syllables of "bananas".The Wiggles did sing their version on their album released in 2014.