In Barry Manilow's version of "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer" what does "snap your caps" mean?
Is it Elton? Is it Billy? Is it Sting perhaps?
Oh you’ll never ever get it, don’t snap your caps.
In Barry Manilow's version of "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer" what does "snap your caps" mean?
Is it Elton? Is it Billy? Is it Sting perhaps?
Oh you’ll never ever get it, don’t snap your caps.
The phrase appears to date back to at least to 1940s America.
Take-off: American all-girl bands during World War Two by Tonya Bolden (2007):
SNAP YOUR CAP: Lose your cool.
The book of Negro folklore by Langston Hughes and Arna Wendell Bontemps (1958):
SNAP YOUR CAP : To become very angry. The dozens made him snap his cap.
American speech, Volume 20 (1945):
SNAP YOUR CAP. Become excited, flustered.
Finally, here it is in a 1977 poem by Maureen Owen:
Don't crack up Go koo koo off the rocks get soaked Don't loose your marbles Twitch your tea Be harried License revoked. Don't hold your breath Lose precious sleep. Snap your cap Pop your buttons Blow a fuse Short out! Don't go under Freak off the scene Drown your hopes & Pout Don't let this old world get you down and others get your goat Don't sink your ship Snap your cookie Up a tree Not wrapped too tight they'll say. Don't come unglued Be in a stew Let a screw come undone Get sapped. Don't go turkey Bees in your bonnet Cook your goose Have bats in your belfry & worse Don't go out of your gourd Loose your cool Let it throw you Be bowled over Come unstrung Don't go batty End up dotty weeping doorsteps midnight phone calls Friends who wish you'd sit up straight!
The Concise New Partridge Dictionary of Slang
snap your cap - to lose your sanity US, 1973
Purely speculating, perhaps it draws on snapback cap - a snap back hat is a baseball cap style hat where size of the hat is adjustable by a snap on the back. Also don't get your knickers in a twist, and (admittedly rarer) don't snap your knicker elastic
You can assume from Manilow's (hitherto virtually unknown) pluralising of caps that it's not a common expression.