"The worms they crept in"

[Laurence Horn]

>Hello George - as soon as I read this line, I remembered this from my
>elementary school years, in Ventura County (Santa Paula) in Southern
>California.  This would have been around 1962-1963.  There were a couple
>verses and there was a real sing-song way we used to recite it:
>
>   The worms crept in, the worms crept out
>    in your mouth and out your snout
>
>There were more verses than this and I used to know them all :)   It
>definitely had to do with dead bodies.
>
>Patty Davies

Right, dead bodies, or in particular those of the singees, so it was
never (in my memory) sung in the past tense, but in the simple
present (with future reference), for what one has to look forward to.
One version from the internet follows; I too remember the bit with
the pinochle playing.  Alternate versions searchable by the usual
methods.

larry


The Worms Crawl In

The worms crawl in,
The worms crawl out,
They crawl in thin
and they crawl out stout.

they bury you deep
in a deep dark hole
they leave you there
to decay and mold

The worms crawl in,
The worms crawl out,
They eat your guts
and they spit them out.

the worms crawl in,
the worms crawl out
the worms play pinochle
on your snout

The worms crawl in,
The worms crawl out,
The worms play pinochle in your snout,
They eat your guts,
and spit them out,
and then they use them for sauerkraut.

Did you ever see a hearse go by
And thing that someday you'll prob'ly die?
They put you in a little box
And cover you up with dirt and rocks

The worms crawl in, the worms crawl out
The worms play pinochle on your snout
Your guts they turn a slimy green
And then they come out like whipping cream


>
>At 03:22 PM 9/16/04, you wrote:
>>The line quoted below is the first line of a poem I remember from my very
>>youthful days, recited by me and my classmates with the thought that we
>>were saying something very daring.  I don't recall my age, but it would
>>have been in probably 3rd or 4th grade, probably not when we were
>>more mature.
>>
>>Faction, lifting up his snaky head,* contemns, in that Commonwealth, it is
>>apprehended, all reason, and defies all law.
>>         *"The worms they crept in and the worms they crept out."
>>         American Citizen, January 26, 1809, p. 2, col. 2  The footnote is
>>as in the original.
>>         The American Citizen was a NYC newspaper, virulently political.
>>
>>
>>George A. Thompson
>>Author of A Documentary History of "The African
>>Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998.