An Etymological Dictionary of the German Language/Annotated/Bohnenlied

by Friedrich Kluge

Bohnenlied, ‘bean-song’ (in the phase etwas geht über das Bohnenlied, applied to something incomparably good); the word may be traced as far back as the 15th century, but the song itself has not been discovered. It may have been an obscure poem, since the bean among various nations is adopted as the symbol of lewdness (compare the mediæval bean-feast, Greek πυανέψια).