Hi ho
Hi ho
It’s off to school we go
The teacher looks like Frakenstein
The water tastes like turpentine
Hi ho, hi ho, hi ho, hi ho
Whistle while you work
Hitler is a jerk
Mussolini bit his weenie
Now it doesn’t squirt
(Despite the fact that both of them had been dead for 20 years when my classmates and I were born, this was a popular one in about 5th grade.)
Joy to the world, the school blew up.
And all the teachers died.
Except for the principal
Who’s hanging from the flagpole
With a rope around his neck
With a rope around his neck
With a rope, a rope around his neck
Here’s a campfire song we’d sing before retiring:
Oh the counselors here at camp
They say are mighty fine
They came from Transylvania
And built by Frankenstein
Oh the coffee* here at camp
They say is mighty fine
It’s good for cuts and scratches
And tastes like turpentine
Oh the biscuits here at camp
They say are mighty fine
But one rolled off the table
And killed a friend of mine
Oh the cabins here at camp
They say are mighty good
They were built in 1930
From quarter-inch plywood
Oh, I don’t want no more of summer camp
Hey ma! I wanna go home!
*we weren’t drinking coffee, but that’s how the counselors sang it
Milly Molly Mandy went a-fishing for a whale
Milly Molly Mandy went a-fishing for a whale
Milly Molly Mandy went a-fishing for a whale
But she didn’t catch a whale
All she got was broken fishing line
All she got was broken fishing line
All she got was broken fishing line
But she didn’t catch a whale
Milly Molly Mandy went a-fishing for a shark
Milly Molly Mandy went a-fishing for a shark
Milly Molly Mandy went a-fishing for a shark
But she didn’t catch a shark
All she got was bitten fingers
All she got was bitten fingers
All she got was bitten fingers
But she didn’t catch a shark
Milly Molly Mandy went a-fishing for a clam
Milly Molly Mandy went a-fishing for a clam
Milly Molly Mandy went a-fishing for a clam
But she didn’t catch a clam
All she got was laryngitis / influenza
All she got was laryngitis / influenza
All she got was laryngitis / influenza
But she didn’t catch a clam
It looks like that would have been sung to the same tune as “Gee, Mom, I Want to Go Home” (a.k.a. “I Don’t Want No More of Army Life”), which I’m mostly familiar with because it featured in an episode of MASH (the one where they tried to watch the film My Darling Clementine, but the projector kept breaking).
What I didn’t know until I looked it up is that it was apparently popularized by the folk singer Lead Belly in the 1940s, and that the writer apparently was a Canadian soldier, who later became an entertainer.
That’s right. And I’m certain there are more verses that describe camp (“army”) life in comedic detail.