Anna Banana | Mama Lisa's World Blog

Lyrics to Anna Banana and Hannah Banana with an MP3

Friday, June 5th, 2009

A third grader named Marisa taught me a hand clapping rhyme called “Hannah Banana”. It comes from a jump rope rhyme called “Anna Banana”. The lyrics to “Anna Banana” are:

Anna Banana
Plays the piana.
All she can play
Is the Star Spangled Banner.
Anna Banana split.

“Hannah Banana”, on the other hand, is a hand clapping rhyme. What’s interesting to me is that “Anna” switched to “Hannah”. We have two theories about why this might have happened. The first is simply is that “Hannah” is now a more popular name in the US than “Anna”. Children on the playground may have heard “Anna” as “Hannah” since the names sound so similar, and switched it. Our other theory is that “Hannah Banana” is somewhat close to “Hannah Montana”, the popular character from the children’s TV show. Children may have switched the rhyme to “Hannah Banana” based on that similarity. We may never know for sure why there’s now a version of “Anna Banana” called “Hannah Banana”, but it’s interesting to speculate.

Here’s the new rhyme “Hannah Banana”, with instructions for playing it and an mp3 of Marisa chanting it…

MP3 of Hannah Banana

Hannah Banana
Plays the piana
All she could play
Is split she’s an idiot.
(Repeat)

Istructions for Hand Clapping Game:

1st 3 lines of Rhyme:

1. Clap your own hands
2. Clap your partner’s hand diagonally
3. Clap your own hands
4. Clap your partner’s other hand diagonally
5. Repeat 1 – 4

Last line of Rhyme: Move feet out (like a little split).

Keep repeating the rhyme – each time moving feet out more on the last line – whoever falls over first loses.