Aram sam sam

Almost every German nursery knows this song, and almost nobody there realises it is not German at all. “A Ram Sam Sam” is a Moroccan children’s song and game, sung in Moroccan Arabic, that has travelled so far and so widely — through scout camps, playgroups and music classes across Europe — that it now feels like a local tradition wherever it lands. (In this collection it sits under Germany because that is where this version comes from, but its roots are North African.)

The words are mostly pure play. “A ram sam sam” means nothing in particular; it is there for the rhythm and the fun of saying it. Only a couple of fragments carry sense — “guli guli guli” is close to “tell me, tell me, tell me”, and “arabi” (a rafiq) means “a friend” — but the song does not depend on meaning. It depends on sound and speed.

Really it is an action game wearing a song’s clothes. Each phrase has its own gesture — fists pounding, index fingers twirling at the temples, hands thrown up — and the whole thing is sung faster and faster, or as a round in overlapping parts, until it collapses into giggles. That is why it crosses every border so easily: you do not need the language to join in, only your hands.