Last month, Lyle gave us a song about homesickness -- or, rather, the anticipation of the homesickness the singer will feel if he ever gets around to leaving. There is, of course, one guaranteed way to get someone out of the house, and that's for him to die.
And, right now, the latest thing in ways to die is, of course, disease -- as in flu. I must confess to being genuinely worried about the H1N1, less because of its actual severity than because the government seems to be taking a "business as usual" approach. I'd love to know what the "business as usual" types will do if H1N1 decides to mutate, which flu viruses are very good at.
But this isn't a column about government, nor about biology. It's about songs. I really wanted a disease song.
They aren't really all that common -- at least, not songs where the disease is the main focus. Apart from songs about venereal disease, anyway. The well-known ballad of Bessie Bell and Mary Gray is supposed to be about a plague outbreak -- but the supporting evidence is thin. Memphis Flu is about a major disease outbreak, which would make it very timely -- but I don't know it, and so can't transcribe it.
And then there is this. It certainly has an old-time pedigree; Bradley Kincaid recorded it in 1933. And it's hilarious. Maybe it will give you something to laugh at as you suffer through the flu.
There is a curiosity about this piece, in that the words are hardly ever altered much, but the tune has changed dramatically. The original words are by Benjamin Hapgood Burt; the first published tune seems to be by Silvio Hein. Roy Atwell sang it in an operetta called Alone at Last, and he is credited with some of the words (presumably he fiddled with Burt's original). I've printed the music from that original publication, just to let you see it (without chords, because it's hard to imagine that tune on a chorded instrument). But as early as 1915, Billy Murray sang it with a different tune, and that's probably the one you have heard if you know the song.
The text I print here is from the Digital Tradition. It's longer than the sheet music version, but I assume you can cut it down to size if you really want to.
[CLICK HERE FOR SHEET MUSIC
(pdf
file)]
Complete Lyrics:
In these days of indigestion it is oftentimes a question
As to what to eat and what to leave alone.
Every microbe and bacillus has a different way to kill us
And in time they all will claim us for their own.
There are germs of every kind in every food that you can find
In the market or upon the bill of fare.
Drinking water's just as risky as the so-called "deadly" whiskey
And it's often a mistake to breathe the air.
For some little bug is going to get you someday.
Some little bug will creep behind you someday.
Then he'll send for his bug friends
And all your troubles they will end,
For some little bug is gonna find you someday.
The inviting green cucumber, it's most everybody's number
While sweetcorn has a system of its own.
Now, that radish seems nutritious, but its behavior is quite vicious
And a doctor will be coming to your home.
Eating lobster, cooked or plain, is only flirting with ptomaine,
While an oyster often has a lot to say.
And those clams we eat in chowder make the angels sing the louder
For they know that they 'II be with us right away.
For some little bug is going to get you someday.
Some little bug will creep behind you someday.
Eat that juicy sliced pineapple,
And the sexton dusts the chapel
Oh, yes, some little bug is gonna find you someday.
When cold storage vaults I visit, I can only say, "What is it
Makes poor mortals fill their systems with such stuff?"
Now, at breakfast prunes are dandy if a stomach pump is handy
And a doctor can be called quite soon enough.
Eat a plate of fine pig's knuckles and the headstone cutter chuckles
While the gravedigger makes a mark upon his cuff.
And eat that lovely red bologna and you 'II wear a wood kimona
As your relatives start packing up your stuff.
For some little bug is going to get you someday.
Some little bug will creep behind you someday.
Then he'll send for his bug friends
And all your troubles they will end,
For some little bug is gonna find you someday.
Those crazy foods they fix, they'll float us 'cross the River
Styx
Or start us climbing up the Milky Way.
And those meals they serve in courses mean a hearse and two black
horses
So before meals, some people always pray.
Luscious grapes breed appendicitis, while their juice leads to
gastritis
So there's only death to greet us either way.
Fried liver's nice, but mind you, friends will follow close behind you
And the papers, they will have nice things to say.
[Click HERE to hear a MIDI file playing a simple, unexpressive, version of the tune.]