In What are the lyrics to Walt Kelly’s classic carol, “Deck Us All With Boston Charlie”?, we are given the distich
For aught I know, this is indeed what Cecil was supplied by the Kelly estate, but, as an experienced editor of poems available only in badly printed editions (chiefly, Double Falshood, André, and Sturgis’ Ivanhoe), may I suggest the emendation:
the which possesses the inestimable advantage of actually scanning?
Scansion aside, and with familiarity with jubjub birds, bandersnatches, and vorpal swords (+5 Vorpal Sword of Dancing!), what is this chortle of plurdid meazel schnits supposed to do?
Tho’ ignant by large, I wuz under tha thunkling that Pogo had sorts to socio-politico-economico-satirism. Or satyrism. Maybe a dryad or a naiad or damp lass with a sword.
So wat gives with this longish trundle thru the asylum’s hedge clippings?
If I understand the above correctly (and I don’t) you want to know what a tutti-frowsy song parody is doing in Pogo, known for social commentary and caricatures of prominent political types.
That stuff came later. In the earlier days (say '48 - '54) , when “Boston Charlie” was first unspooled, Pogo plotting was a more generalized perloo of swamp morality plays, get-rich-quick schemes, lost pup-dogs, medicine shows, confused bats playing cards, and sticks being poked into cardboard boxes.
That never went away, but things started to change when a character named Simple J. Malarkey, spookily reminiscent of Senator Joe McCarthy, dropped in. A controversial move in the funny papers, and much discussed at the time, so Kelly kept doing it and now that’s what people think of when they think of the strip.
I doubt there is one standard rendering of the song Boston Charlie. Pogo was in syndication from 1948 until 1973. Pogo itself really started in 1941 with the Dell comic books which not only included Pogo and Albert, but a little black boy named Bumbazine. (A picture of Albert, Bumazine, and Pogo can be found here).
Over the years, not only did the words to Boston Charlie change, but the characters themselves argued over the bumbled lyrics.
Pogo became more political over the years – especially in the late 1960s and early 1970s when almost every politician was skewed by some character in Pogo. LBJ became a longhorn with bad eyesight. Agnew was a hyena/bear wearing the White House Guard Uniform and overly concerned about Lawn Order. Nixon himself was a cross between a teapot and a spider.
The posthumous chroniclers that the column mentions Are Kelly’s wife and Bill Crouch, Jr. in The Best of Pogo, the first of a series of appreciations, outtakes, and lookbacks published in the 1980s.
The collected verses are given exactly as in the column on p. 141. But on p. 142 the original Dec. 12, 1959 strip is reprinted. It doesn’t really help. Here’s the full four panels:
Houndog:
WHY
NOT US
MY
SUGGESTION
?
Houndog:
I DON’T
MEAN THAT
ONE–I MEAN
THE ONE I
SUNG COUPLE
YEARS AGO.
Houndog:
BARK US ALL BOW WOWS OF FOLLY,
POLLY WOLLY CRACKER AN’
TOO-DALOO!
HUNKY DORY’S POP IS LOLLY-
GAGGIN’ IN THE WAGON WILLY
FOLLY-GO-THROUGH!
Houndog:
HOW’S THAT? WHY’S YOU
STANDIN’ WAY OVER
THERE FOR?
Churchy:
I’M KEEPIN’
OUT OF RANGE.
The printed version adds commas and makes guesses at where the breaks should be. But I’d guess that IN THE WAGON/WILLY FOLLY-GO-THROUGH is what Kelly meant.
I somehow hit post partway through that, so I had to write it fast on my edit time. Too fast.
In panel 1 that should be
WHY
NOT USE
And the suggested sense for scansion should be:
BARK US ALL BOW WOWS OF FOLLY,
POLLY WOLLY CRACKER AN’ TOO-DALOO!
HUNKY DORY’S POP IS LOLLY-GAGGIN’
IN THE WAGON WILLY
FOLLY-GO-THROUGH!
That scans, but I’d stand out of ear-range myself.
John: I think it’s merely a typo from when the columns were translated to the new system; there should clearly be a space between “lolly” and “gaggin’”.
I’ll get it fixed, thanks for calling our attention to it.
No, it doesn’t scan. You’re trying to match
'Tis the sea son to be jol ly
Fa la la la la, la la la la.
That should be
Hung ky Dor y’s pop is lol ly
gaggin in the wag on willy folly go through.
Yeah, I know I have to butcher the last line to fit the fa la las, but nothing is clean there. It’s atrocious no matter how you parse it. Basically you squeeze two beats for the two syllable words into one beat of the original.
Your way sets up the expectation of the beats where the two syllable words are two beats per syllable of the original, and then it doesn’t follow through.
My version saves that for the last line, and is then consistent. Also, my version matches lolly to jolly, which has the advantage of sounding like the original it is aping. Sticking gaggin on the end runs that element.
Not that my version is particularly good. The song should be nuked from orbit.
Deck’ the halls’ with boughs’ of hol’-ly, (1-2-2-2-1)
Fa’ la la’ la la’, la la’ la la’.
Tis’ the sea’-son to’ be jol’-ly,
Fa’ la la’ la la’, la la’ la la’.
BARK’ US ALL’ BOW WOWS’ OF FOL’-LY, (1-2-2-2-1)
POL’-LY WOL’-LY CRACK’-ER AN’ TOO’-DALOO’! (1-2-2-3-2)
HUN’-KY DOR’-Y’S POP’ IS LOL’-LY- (1-2-2-2-1)
GAGG’-[IN’ IN THE WAG’]-ON WIL’-LY FOL’-LY-GO’-THROUGH’! (1-4-2-2-2-1)
I think the second line is meant to scan by slurring the ER and AN’ while the fourth line makes sense if you hear the ON of wagon as the IN of gaggin’ and those four beats in parens are extraneous.
Or we could be overthinking the whole thing.
Oh for God’s sake, the meter of the original song (and of Kelly’s parody) is not iambic, but trochaic! Think Hiawatha, not Hamlet!. The odd-numbered lines in both are straight trochaic tetrameter:
Déck the / hálls with / bóughs of / hól-ly,
…
’Tís the / séa-son / tó be / jól-ly,
…
Dón we / nów our / gáy ap- / pá-rel,
…
Tróll the / án-cient / yúle-tide / cá-rol,
…
And similarly:
Déck us / áll with / Bós-ton / Chár-lie,
…
Nó-rah’s / frée-zin’ / ón the / tról-ley,
…
Dón’t we / knów ar- / chá-ic / bár-rel,
…
Tról-ley / Mól-ly / dón’t love / Há-rold,
…
So, in the passage at hand, we have:
Bárk us / áll bow-/ wóws of / fólly,
…
Dón-key / Bón-ny / bráys a / cá-rol,
…
Hún-ky / Dó-ry’s / póp is / lól-ly,
…
Chól-lie’s / cól-lie / bárks at / Bár-row,
…
(Note: the “Donkey Bonny” line appears to be an allusion to the parody of The Musicians of Bremen in Uncle Pogo’s So-so Stories.)
Observe, by the way, that the rhyme scheme has changed from ARARBRBR to ARBRARBR. The third chorus will be ARARAQAQ. Observe, too, that the rhymes prove my original point without even bringing up issues of meter.
Now, the even-numbered lines are a bit more difficult. They are in what is known as Sprung Rhythm, which has long been common in nursery rhymes and folk songs, but did not appear in formal Modern-English verse before Gerard Manley Hopkins, though it could be argued to have been part of the system of Old English alliterative poetry. Sprung Rhythm is based on a one-beat foot that can contain pretty much any number of syllables. One of my favorite examples, from Charles Williams’ The Calling of Arthur, is this devastating sprung alexandrine:
In Ló- / gres the Kíng’s / Fríend / lánd- / ed, Lán- / ce-lot of Gául.
So the original song has:
…
Fá-la-la-la- / lá-la- / lá-la- / lá!
…
Fá-la-la-la- / lá-la- / lá-la- / lá!
…
Fá-la-la- / lá-la-la- / lá-la- / lá!
…
Fá-la-la-la- / lá-la- / lá-la- / lá!
and so:
…
Wál-la Wal-la, / Wásh., an’ / Ká-la-ma- / zóo!
…
Swál-ler dol-lar / cáu-li-flo-wer / ál-ley-ga- / róo!
…
Lúl-la-by / Líl-la Boy, / Lóu-is-ville / Lóu?
…
Bóo-la boola / Pén-sa-coo-la / húl-la-ba- / lóo!
and:
…
Pól-ly wol-ly / crác-ker ’n’ / tóo-da- / lóo!
…
Án-te-lope / Cán-ta-loupe, / 'lópe with / yóu!
…
Gág-gin’ on the / wá-gon, Wil-ly, / fól-ly go / thróugh!
…
Há-rum sca-rum / fíve alarm / búng-a- / lóo!
Yeah, John, I don’t know the terminology or anything.
Thanks, that’s what I was trying to get at. For those lines of the song, you are not matching syllable to syllable, you’re squeezing the syllables to fit the rhythm by doubling or tripling up the beats.
Also, thanks for pointing out that I was trying to fit the wrong line of rhythym. Not that it really helps the song.
