I learned a version of this dance in the 1980’s from Canadian children’s performers Sharon, Lois & Bram. In their 1980 book “Elephant Jam” they say they learned the dance from a third grader on a playground in Toronto. They write that the melody is “a version of the well-known Willobee Song“, but I discovered possible Black roots to the dance (see below), in which the melody is sometimes referred to as Shortnin’ Bread.
https://www.bethsnotesplus.com/2017/03/willowbee.html
In 2017 I taught Valerie to the group below.
Dale Adamson, organizer of the retreat, later sent me a link to this site http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2015/04/this-way-valerie-strut-miss-lucy-strut.html which included the YouTubes below of various examples of similar playground games, plus information on lyrics, dance instructions, etc.
Notice that the little girl is “strutting” (moving with a prideful, rhythmic step). For what it’s worth, when I introduced the singing game “Here We Go Zudio” to (mostly) Black girls and boys [ages 5-12 years old] in the game song group that I held in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and in nearby Braddock, Pennsylvania the children didn’t know what “strut” meant and had some difficulty learning that way of walking. They usually ended up dancing instead of “strutting”. That same unfamiliarity with “strutting” appears to be shown in the following videos and in other YouTube videos of “Strut Miss Lucy” singing games being taught to children and adult music students. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KT6VhWPoAws
WHAT “STRUT” MEANS
From http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/strut+one’s+stuff
…”Strut implies swelling pride or pompousness; to strut is to walk with a stiff, pompous, seemingly affected or self-conscious gait: A turkey struts about the barnyard.”
From https://www.macmillandictionary.com/us/dictionary/american/strut_1 to walk in an especially confident and proud way, strut around: Phyllis struts around like she owns the place.
Comment: Thanks for posting this! Somehow the Strut Miss Lizzie song came into my head tonight. I was born in 1951 and we used to play this at recess. I lived in an all white very blue collar area of Minneapolis.
A video from the Bahamas https://ms-my.facebook.com/iisabahamianbey/videos/have-you-played-this-ring-play-game-before-walkin-through-the-alley-as-the-baham/2421606718133201/ [Sorry. I don’t know how to embed this video.]
Folkdance Footnotes 