Wednesday, June 26 I sing
Wednesday, June 26
I sing when I work and when I’m happy. I think that many people do, or at least want to, but in the absence of recorded background noise, simply don’t know enough songs to do so!
Ferlogitta sang sometimes, and I sang sometimes while working in the trench. Alas, the only point of coinscision* of our musical knowledge were certain children’s songs and a few gospel songs.
Anyway, there was a certain song that I was very fond of in childhood, that I once sang at Ferlogitta’s request for a humourous song-
Oh, I was born one night one morn when the whistle went toot-toot.
You can buy a cake or fry a snake when the mudpies are in bloom.
Do six and six make nine? Does ice grow on a vine?
Was old man Joe** an eskimo in the good old summertime?
Oh, loop-de-loop in the noodle soup just to make my socks to shine.
I’m guilty, judge, I ate the fudge, three cheers for Auld Lang Syne.
I cannot tell a lie, I hocked an apple pie.
It’s on a tree beneath the sea above the dark blue sky.
If Easter eggs don’t wash their legs their children will have ducks.
I’d rather buy a lemon pie for forty-seven bucks.
Way down in Barceloni-o
They jumped into the foam-i-o
Now this is all baloney-o
Padderooski blow your horn! (Toot, toot!)
This enchanted her, and she insisted that I teach it to her line by line. From her it spread to Hachaya and Amadtaed; all the younger members of the dig. Well, at least now I know that I’m part of the great tradition of the perpetuation of heritage by means of song! Still, if they were all going to come away enriched by my knowledge of musical lore, why couldn’t they have all gone nuts over one of the nifty ballads I know, eh? What’s wrong with murder, adultery, suicide, and incest? Hey! Come back here! I’ll sing you "Matty Groves!
* I’m sure I misspelled that. It looks wrong. But it looks wrong with a ‘c’, too.
**Originally "Old Black Joe". But how do I know what’s a racial slur these days?
We used to sing that at Girl Scout Camp. We called it "The Jeep Song". We said "old man Joe", I think, but that may have been to avoid something that might have been a racial slur. I’ve never known anybody else who knew it. Yay!
October 20th, 2002 at 6:20 amco-incision?
October 20th, 2002 at 9:13 am