Beans, etc, PS: The Battle Hymn...

[Jonathan Lighter]

Another "Old Smoky."  The last, I promise:

  On top of Old Smoky,
  All bloody and red,
  I found my poor teacher,
  With an ax in her head.

  If you were teacher's pet, you could substitute "Davy Crockett."  Now that was _really_ disturbing.

  JL

Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU> wrote:
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Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Laurence Horn
Subject: Re: Beans, etc, PS: The Battle Hymn...
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At 9:23 AM -0700 6/8/07, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>Another fave at the time was,
>
> On top of Old Smoky,
> All covered with blood,
> I found my poor teacher,
> With her face in the mud.
>
> I don't believe anyone got in trouble for singing these songs, but
>I couldn't be everywhere. Personally I found them disturbing,
>especially when sung by little girls. The fad didn't seem to last
>more than a couple of weeks, though.
>
> JL

I obviously lived a more sheltered life: no loaded .44s, no
school-burnings, not even any blood, just assault by decomposing
tangerines and, for Old Smoky, a pasta substitute.

LH

>
>
>
>Charles Doyle wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>-----------------------
>Sender: American Dialect Society
>Poster: Charles Doyle
>Subject: Re: Beans, etc, PS: The Battle Hymn...
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>Date: Fri, 8 Jun 2007 08:50:15 -0700
>From: Jonathan Lighter <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Re: Beans, etc, PS: The Battle Hymn...
>
>Ah, yes, the TEACHER: that forbidding (if not malovelent) figure
>looming in the psychological landscape of American children--fair
>game for those hostilities that attachments to actual parents would
>make difficult.
>
>On top of old Smoky, all covered with sand,
>I shot my old teacher with a green rubberband.
>I shot her with pleasure, I shot her with pride.
>I couldn't have missed her; she's forty-feet wide.
>
>--Charlie
>_____________________________________________________________
>
>As I remember it:
>
>Mine eyes have seen the glory of the burning of the school.
>We have tortured every teacher; we have broken every rule.
>We'll go down to the office and we'll hang the principal,
>As we go marching on.
>
>Glory, glory, hallelujah!
>Teacher hit me with a ruler!
>I bopped her on the bean with a rotten tangerine,
>As we go marching on.
>
>The "tangerine" line was sometimes replaced with, "I met her at the
>door with a loaded .44." And sometimes both were sung in tandem,
>with the bean-bopping coming first.
>
>"School days! school days! Dear old Golden Rule days!" --_Old song_
>
>(Sniff.)
>
>JL
>
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