Beans, Beans, the Musical Fruit

"Beans, Beans, The Musical Fruit" (alternately "Beans, Beans, good for your heart") is a playground saying and children's song about how beans cause flatulence (i.e. farting).^[1]

The basis of the song (and bean/fart humor in general) is the high amount of oligosaccharides present in beans. Bacteria in the large intestine digest these sugars, producing carbon dioxide, hydrogen, and methane.^[2]

Lyrics

Beans, beans, the musical fruit.
The more you eat, the more you toot.
The more you toot, the better you feel.
So eat your beans with every meal!^[3]

Alternate lyrics include:

Beans, beans, the magical fruit.
The more you eat, the more you toot.
The more you toot, the better you feel.
So let’s have beans for every meal!^[4][5]

Another alternate version includes:

Beans, beans, they’re good for your heart.
The more you eat, the more you fart.
The more you fart, the better it feels.
Beans should be served at every meal!^[6]

A variant documented by Iona Opie, an English folklorist, is:

Beans, beans, make you fart.
Beans, beans, are good for your heart.
Apple crumble makes you rumble;
Custard powder makes it louder.^[7]

Popular culture

• A version of the rhyme appears at the beginning of Robert Crumb's comic strip, "Crybaby's Blues".^[8]
• In The Simpsons season 4 episode 20 "Whacking Day," Bart performs a rendition of "Beans, Beans, the Musical Fruit."^[9]
• The American bean brand Bush Brothers and Company wrote a related song with the singer Josh Groban.^[10][11][12] The lyrics include a direct reference to the rhyme: "They'd yell about the musical fruit // They'd say the more that I ate, the more I'd (toot)".^[13]
• In a "Dot's Poetry Corner" segment of Animaniacs, Dot recites a variation entitled "Ode to a Veggie", that goes "Beans, beans, the musical fruit / The more you eat, the more they kick you off the air if you finish this poem."^[14]
• In an episode of Rocko's Modern Life, Heffer Wolfe randomly sings "Beans, beans, they're good for your heart. The more you eat, the more you-" only to get cut off.

General references

• Dawson, Jim. Who Cut the Cheese?: A Cultural History of the Fart, ISBN 1-58008-011-1