Frankie Smith's 1981 hit "Double Dutch Bus!"

One of my favorite songs of 1981 was a song called “Double Dutch Bus” by Frankie Smith. The funny thing was, I had absolutely no idea what this song was about! Can you imagine trying to sing this song on Karoake night?

After doing some research, I found out that the “Double Dutch Bus” actually represents a combination of two institutions in Smith's Philadelphia Pennsylvania neighborhood: the double Dutch game of jump rope played by neighborhood kids, and SEPTA, (Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority) the public transit bus system that was the backbone of the local transportation network (and for which Smith had unsuccessfully applied for a bus driving position; the Transpass referred to in the song is an actual SEPTA pass).

Frankie’s song popularized a nonsensical form of slang, in which "iz" is placed in the middle of a word. For example, the word "place" becomes "plizace" or the last letters of a word are replaced with "-izzle" (ex. sure becomes shizzle). Now you know how this style became part of today's hip-hop slang culture (popularized by rapper Snoop Dogg).

After watching this video, I couldn’t help but notice that the bus in the video happens to look like one from the Department of Corrections! Yikes!