The chorus of the song is often used to teach children about skeletons:

Toe bone connected to the foot bone

Foot bone connected to the leg bone

Leg bone connected to the knee bone...

Bob Barner based a children's book of anatomy on this song.

Over the years, the song has been covered by the Crazy World of Arthur Brown, Shirley Caesar and Rosemary Clooney.

Cultural References

• Peter O'Toole sings the song in the 1972 film, The Ruling Class as a call-to-arms to the upper-classes to "bring back fear" by means of the breaking wheel.
• Dem Bones is an integral part of "Fall Out", the final episode of British cult show "The Prisoner", being performed on screen during one scene and heard on a car radio in another. This version is performed by The Four Lads.
• The song is played at the beginning of the film, Critical Care in opening credits.
• The song is played briefly in the film 1988 film Rain Man in one evening scene during the car trip taken by the characters Charlie Babbit (Tom Cruise) and his autistic brother Raymond (Dustin Hoffman).
• The song has been featured in television dramas such as ''The Singing Detective."
• In the episode of The Simpsons, Homer's Triple Bypass, Dr. Nick Riviera, stumped in the middle of the operation, sings it in an effort to refresh his memory (although he bungles the lyrics and ends up singing "the red thing's connected to my wristwatch").
• In the episode of Babylon 5, Ceremonies of Light and Dark, a terrorist is singing a few lines of the song to his fellows, obviously hinting at the details of a planned torture.
• The song is featured in a dream sequence in the computer game Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge. The song's lyrics are later used to solve an in-game puzzle.
• There is a character in the Super Mario video game series named Dry Bones, a possible reference towards the song's lyrics.
• In Magic: The Gathering, the flavor text of the card 'Obsianus Golem' is a spin-off to this song.
• Alice in Chains wrote a song called 'Them Bones'
• In an episode of My Life as a Teenage Robot Tuck attempts to reattach Jenny's body and sings an excerpt (Thigh bone connected to the shinbone)
• In Invisible Monsters, Shannon tells the doctor to connect her jaw bone to her leg bone, but the doctor doesn't notice the reference.
• In the song "They Want EFX" by rap duo Das EFX, a slightly modified version of Dem Bones is used as a part of the lyrics.
• Broken Bones is a UK based punk/hardcore group that formed in the early 1980s and covered the song 'Dem Bones'. They titled their first LP "Dem Bones" in 1984 by 'Discharge' Producer Mike Stone.
• In the Video Game Destroy all Humans 2, the main character starts to sing this song, but later claims they couldn't afford the rights.
• On the popular comedy Full House in the June 1992 episode "Please Don't Touch the Dinosaurs" Uncle Jesse Sings Dem Bones while putting together a Dinosaur Model that Michelle and Friend Accidentally ran into
• "Dry Bones in the Valley" is performed by John Fahey on his album "Old Fashioned Love" and was later covered by Gastr del Sol

External links

• Everything2 Article on Dem Bones
• Allmusic.com search for Dem Bones