The line ‘The Head of the Herd’ comes from the song Nellie the Elephant. It was a song that my parents used to sing to me when I was a kid, but to be honest I had completely forgotten all about until I was in the UK and they sang it to my son. It brought back a lot of positive memories, and my son certainly seemed to enjoy it as well.
Unfortunately, when I tried to use this name for this blog, WordPress said it was already taken. I did a search for the blog to see what it was about, but couldn’t seem to find it. Maybe it has been blocked or was recently removed by its owner. I still wanted the name, though, so I used the homophone ‘heard’ instead of ‘herd’. While it makes no sense, I kind of think it is appropriate for a blog about language and language development and I like the sound of the line and the possible meanings.
So there you go. The Head of the Heard.
To Bombay
A traveling circus came
They brought an intelligent elephant
And Nellie was her name
One dark night
She slipped her iron chain
And off she ran to Hindustan
And was never seen again
Ooooooooooooo…
Nellie the Elephant packed her trunk
And said goodbye to the circus
Off she went with a trumpety-trump
Trump, trump, trump
Nellie the Elephant packed her trunk
And trundled back to the jungle
Off she went with a trumpety-trump
Trump, trump, trump
Night by night
She danced to the circus band
When Nellie was leading the big parade
She looked so proud and grand
No more tricks
For Nellie to perform
They taught her how to take a bow
And she took the crowd by storm
The head of the herd was calling
Far, far away
They met one night in the silver light
On the road to Mandalay
So Nellie the Elephant packed her trunk
And said goodbye to the circus
Off she went with a trumpety-trum
Trump, trump, trump
Ooooooooooooo…
Nellie the Elephant packed her trunk
And said goodbye to the circus
Off she went with a trumpety-trump
Trump, trump, trump
Nellie the Elephant packed her trunk
And trundled back to the jungle
Off she went with a trumpety-trump
Trump, trump, trump
