"The worms they crept in"

[Jonathan Lighter]

The earliest texts of the song I've seen date from World War I.  The first appears in Carl Sandburg's "American Songbag" (1927), the second in John Jacob Niles's "Songs My Mother Never Taught Me" (1929).  Both give the tune.  Though the words differ slightly, both versions were sung overseas in the US Army Air Service, as it was then called.

The army versions are somewhat less repellent than the later kids' song.

JL


"Patti J. Kurtz" <kurtpatt4 at NETSCAPE.NET> wrote:
---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: "Patti J. Kurtz"
Subject: Re: "The worms they crept in"
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laurence.horn at YALE.EDU wrote:

>
>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
>
>
I remember:

The worms crawl in, the worms crawl out
the ants play pinochle on your snout
your stomach turns a sickly green
and pus pours out like shaving cream.

Patti Kurtz

>
>
>
>>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.
>>>
>>>

--

Freeman - And what drives you on, fighting the monster?



Straker - I don't know, something inside me I guess.



Freeman - It's called dedication.



Straker - Pig-headedness would be nearer.


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