Great Green Gobs of Greasy, Grimy Gopher Guts

The song "Great Green Gobs of Greasy, Grimy Gopher Guts" is a children's public domain playground song popular throughout the United States. Dating back to at least the mid-20th century, the song is sung to the tune of "The Old Gray Mare".[1] The song, especially popular in school lunchrooms and at summer camps, presents macabre horrors through cheerful comedy while allowing children to explore taboo images and words especially as they relate to standards of cleanliness and dining.[2][3] Many local and regional variations of the lyrics exist, but whatever variant, they always entail extensive use of the literary phonetic device known as an alliteration which helps to provide an amusing description of animal body parts and fluids not normally consumed by Americans.

Song versions

Smithsonian Folkways version

The song appears on the Smithsonian Folkways compilation release entitled A Fish That's A Song, a collection of traditional public domain children's songs from the United States performed by Mika Seeger.[4] The Smithsonian release appears to be derived from an earlier 1959 release entitled The Sounds Of Camp.

The lyrics performed by Mika Seeger are as follows:

Great green globs of greasy, grimy gopher guts,
Mutilated monkey meat.
French fried flamingo feet.
French fried eyeballs swimming in a pool of blood
And me without my spoon.[5]

Texas Version

Great green globs of greasy, grimy gopher guts,
Mutilated monkey's meat.
Bitty Baby Birdy feet
French fried eyeballs soaking in a pool of blood,
And me without a spoon
(But there's a straw.....)

We are smarter than you think (well, some)

Michigan Version

Great Big Gobs of Greasy Grimy Gopher Guts
Mutulated Monkey Meat
Chopped Up Birdies Feet
Great Big Eyeballs Swimming in a Pool of Blood
Gee! I Forgot My Spoon!

St.Louis Version

Great green gobs of greasy, grimy gopher guts,
Mutilated monkey meat,
Chopped up parrot feet.
French fried eye balls,
Swimmin' in a pool of blood,
Eat it with out a spoon.
Burp.

New York Version

Lyrics of a more extensive version from New York City was in use during the 1990s as follows:

Yankee Doodle went to town a-ridin’ on a gopher
Bumped into a garbage can and this is what fell over:
Great green gobs of greasy, grimy gopher guts,
Mutilated monkey meat, chopped up baby parakeet.
French-fried eyeballs rolling down the street.
Oops, I forgot my spoon!
So they gave me a split-splat, pus-on-top,
Monkey vomit and camel snot,
All wrapped up in birdie poo,
So eat it, (name), it’s good for you!
With vitamin C, and protein too
And don’t forget the doggie doo![6]
Upstate New York version
Recalled from the 1970's is another verse
including "quarts and quarts of all purpose porpoise pus"

Pittsburgh version

The following version was sung in the mid-1950s in the Shadyside and East Liberty neighborhoods of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Great green globs of greasy grimy gopher guts,
Mutilated monkey meat,
dirty little birdy feet,
Great green globs of greasy grimy gopher guts,
And me without my spoon.

This alternate Pittsburgh version was sung in the 1980s in the Shadyside and East Liberty neighborhoods of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, as well as the eastern suburbs.

Great green globs of greasy grimy gopher guts,
Mutilated monkey meat,
little dirty birdy feet,
Those are the things that I really like to eat,
And I forgot my spoon.

Washington version

Great green gobs of greasy grimy gopher guts,
constipated camel feet,
mutilated monkey meet,
all bunched up with french fried eyeballs,
and I forgot my spoon!

Bizarre Foods America rap version

Bizarre Foods America, a cooking show which began airing in 2012 on cable television's Travel Channel, uses a hip-hop version for its theme song. The rapped lyrics are backed by keyboards and electronically produced drum beats.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Lansky, Bruce and Stephen Carpenter, I've Been Burping in the Classroom, p 10. Meadowbrook, 2007.
  2. ↑ Westfahl, Gary, et al, Foods of the Gods: Eating and the Eaten in Fantasy and Science Fiction, p 79. University of Georgia Press, 1996.
  3. ↑ Bronner, Simon J., American Children's Folklore, pp 81-82. August House, 2006.
  4. ↑ A Fish That's A Song, Smithsonian Folkways recording no. SFW45037.
  5. ↑ Booklet notes to the Smithsonian Folkways recording at the Wayback Machine (archived February 21, 2014)
  6. ↑ Tucker, Elizabeth. Children's Folklore: A Handbook, p 66. Greenwood Publishing Group, 2008.

Further reading

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 11/28/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.