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  • The Sandman's Hour, Abbie Phillips Walker

    From Joy Beeson@21:1/5 to All on Fri Mar 1 21:36:19 2024
    Monday, 26 February 2024

    Today a make-it-up-as-you go along song that I heard thirty or forty
    years ago came into my head:

    We had a gum tree, No gum would it give
    Until that rooster came into the yard
    And caught that gum tree right off of its guard
    Now it's growing chicklets, just like it uster
    Ever since that rooster
    came into the yard.

    So I duck-ducked "rooster came into the yard" (with quotes) in hope of
    turning up more verses. It turns out that knowledge of the song is
    very widespread, but the verses I found made those that I remember
    look like Shakespear.

    The phrase "rooster came into the yard" also appears in "The Rooster
    That Crowed Too Soon" in the Gutenberg edition of


    The Sandman's Hour
    Stories for Bedtime

    Abbie Phillips Walker
    Illustrated by Rhoda C. Chase

    Harper & Brothers, Publishers
    Copyright 1917


    E-Book release August 25, 2013


    I thought my review would read "The kindest thing one can say about
    these stories it that there are no errors in spelling, grammar, or punctuation."

    The characters don't aspire to cardboard, the plots are hardly
    anecdotes, and the morals are anvilicious.

    Yet I read every last one when I should have been doing something
    else.

    They are, at least, very short.


    --
    Joy Beeson
    joy beeson at centurylink dot net
    http://wlweather.net/PAGEJOY/
    http://wlweather.net/PAGESEW/

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  • From Ted Nolan @21:1/5 to jbeeson@invalid.net.invalid on Sat Mar 2 03:35:52 2024
    In article <m245ui5fhdl7mtdvokcvscprc33m7tg3ga@4ax.com>,
    Joy Beeson <jbeeson@invalid.net.invalid> wrote:

    Monday, 26 February 2024

    Today a make-it-up-as-you go along song that I heard thirty or forty
    years ago came into my head:

    We had a gum tree, No gum would it give
    Until that rooster came into the yard
    And caught that gum tree right off of its guard
    Now it's growing chicklets, just like it uster
    Ever since that rooster
    came into the yard.

    So I duck-ducked "rooster came into the yard" (with quotes) in hope of >turning up more verses. It turns out that knowledge of the song is
    very widespread, but the verses I found made those that I remember
    look like Shakespear.


    I've heard the song sung in fan setting, though I'm not sure if that's
    where the singers learned it.
    --
    columbiaclosings.com
    What's not in Columbia anymore..

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  • From Paul S Person@21:1/5 to jbeeson@invalid.net.invalid on Sat Mar 2 08:50:32 2024
    On Fri, 01 Mar 2024 21:36:19 -0500, Joy Beeson
    <jbeeson@invalid.net.invalid> wrote:


    Monday, 26 February 2024

    Today a make-it-up-as-you go along song that I heard thirty or forty
    years ago came into my head:

    We had a gum tree, No gum would it give
    Until that rooster came into the yard
    And caught that gum tree right off of its guard
    Now it's growing chicklets, just like it uster
    Ever since that rooster
    came into the yard.

    So I duck-ducked "rooster came into the yard" (with quotes) in hope of >turning up more verses. It turns out that knowledge of the song is
    very widespread, but the verses I found made those that I remember
    look like Shakespear.

    The version I have on CD starts with the rooster solving the hens'-aren't-laying-eggs problem, and then applies that to ... other
    barnyard problems.

    I suspect it is in one of the New Christie Minstrel's medleys, but I
    can't be sure.
    --
    "Here lies the Tuscan poet Aretino,
    Who evil spoke of everyone but God,
    Giving as his excuse, 'I never knew him.'"

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  • From Scott Dorsey@21:1/5 to psperson@old.netcom.invalid on Sat Mar 2 18:22:29 2024
    Paul S Person <psperson@old.netcom.invalid> wrote:
    The version I have on CD starts with the rooster solving the >hens'-aren't-laying-eggs problem, and then applies that to ... other
    barnyard problems.

    Yes, that is precisely the point of the song. We had a elephant and
    no tusks would she grow..... she's laying bowling balls of solid ivory
    ever since that rooster came into our yard.

    I first heard the song from Robin Welch at Sci-Con in Norfolk back in
    the eighties. It is no doubt much older than that and likely dates
    to the Great Folk Scare of the 1960s.
    --scott


    --
    "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

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  • From Titus G@21:1/5 to Joy Beeson on Mon Mar 4 15:40:23 2024
    On 2/03/24 15:36, Joy Beeson wrote:

    The characters don't aspire to cardboard, the plots are hardly
    anecdotes, and the morals are anvilicious.


    Brilliant. (But I had to look up anvilicious.)

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