Erie Canal Song

In My Humble Opinion
1

It seems to me that when I was growing up, they made us sing “The Erie Canal Song” incessantly in school - both elementary school and junior high.

So incessantly, that when I saw Scylla’s “15 miles” thread in MPSIMS ( http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=85304 ), I immediately began singing it in my head. You know the one:

*"I’ve got a mule and her name is Sal
Fifteen miles on the Erie Canal
She’s a good old worker and a good old pal
Fifteen miles on the Erie Canal

We’ve hauled some barges in our day
Filled with lumber, coal, and hay
And we know every inch of the way
From Albany to Buffalo

Low bridge, everybody down
Low bridge for we’re coming to a town
And you’ll always know your neighbor
And you’ll always know your pal
If you’ve ever navigated on
The Erie Canal "*

I am similary afflicted everytime I drive home for the holidays and I see the Thruway sign at the Mass border that says “Albany / Buffalo”

So my question is, how many people out there had to sing this song all the time? I grew up in the Finger lakes region of New York State, a stone’s throw from the Erie Canal, which I suppose might explain why they made us sing it all the time. On the other hand, maybe school music teachers are universally attached to this song the country over.

BTW: my BF, who grew up in Western Mass, does NOT know the song.

2

Yeah. Sorry to hear that. I’m from eastern PA, and I never heard of it. I just asked a co-worker, though and he said he has in Western PA. Closer to the lake.

3

I had to sing that song too…& I lived in Philadelphia during my elementary school years!!! I barely knew where Albany or Buffalo were!

4

Correction: the BF is from CENTRAL Mass, not Western Mass.

5

Nope. California boy here. We grew up singing hippie songs. “This land is my land.” “They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.” That kind of thing.

6

I grew up in Northern Indiana and we sang that song a lot, too. I could be a matter of era, rather than location–I was in grade school in the 60’s if that helps.

7

Good point.

My Erie Canal Song days were from 1976 to about 1983.

We also sang “This Land is Your Land” a lot. I used to love that song when I was 9 or 10 - gave me goosebumps.

8

Ditto on grade school in the 60s, and we sang this, IIRC, in both Atlanta and Washington, D.C.

Note, however, that in Atlanta this was supplemented by the southern cultural gem, “Way down yonder in the paw-paw patch”. Being a good carpetbagger I still have no idea WTF a pawpaw patch is.

9

Yep, we sang it, too.

I also remember this song:

http://sniff.numachi.com/~rickheit/dtrad/lookup.cgi?ti=HARLMDOV

Seems a little strange to be teaching it to 5th graders.

10

I’d read the lyrics but don’t think I’d ever heard the song until I was an adult. It was well worth it, however, in order to appreciate the Animaniacs’ “Panama Canal” parody of it.

11

Howyadoin,

Not only do I remember the song, I remembered most of the words, which only proves that I am a horrible monster and deserve to die…

I also remember being indoctrinated by our hippie com-symp music teachers with bilge like If I Had A Hammer, This Land Is Your Land, Joy To The World… Ecch. Hey Teach, want a sickle to go with that hammer? And would it kill you to either wear pants or shave your legs, I’m gettin’ emotionally scarred here…

-Rav

12

I had to sing it in NYC in the '70s.About 2 years ago, I amazed my daughter. She had to do a project about the Erie Canal, and the song was printed on the back cover of one of the books. I still remembered all the words and sang it.

13

Well, I finally get to see the lyrics to Oleana. But they’re different from what little I remember singing as a kid:

*Where hens lay eggs as big as rocks
And roosters crow like eight-day clocks
And roasted pigs run all about
With knives and forks suck up their snouts

Ole Oleana, etc.*

14

BTW, my childhood was spent in Arkansas in the early 1970s. For what it’s worth, I can corroborate ShibbOleth’s comment on “Way Down Yonder in the Paw-Paw Patch” being the dumb little ditty of choice in Southern elementary school classrooms – along with “Marching to Pretoria”, which is somehow creepy given that we’d only ended our own little version of apartheid (segregated schools) the year that I started first grade (70-71 school year).

15

Oh yeah, I remember singing I’ve Been to Harlem (which Mjolnir linked), Erie Canal, This Land is Your Land, Way Down Yonder in the Paw Paw Patch (none of us in So. Cal. had ever seen a paw paw, and didn’t know what they were used for), The Battle of New Orleans, and another song whose title I don’t remember but whose chorus was “Whipsee-diddle-dee-dansie-oh!” Oh and Donah, about the calf being slaughtered.

16

My mother taught us to sing it-this was Tennessee from 1973 on. She has no roots anywhere other then Tennessee, and I have no idea where she learned it.

17

Growing up in Buffalo … oh man, fourth grade was New York State history at my school, and I think we sang that song more than “Kumbaya.”

Someone’s sneezing, Lord … kumbaya …

18

Another Buffalonian checking in, we sang this song all the time in grade school, probably more than the national anthem. This is the 70s here, so I’m also of that grade school folksy music education department era.

Wasn’t it the coolest when it was your turn to have the tambourine?

19

I spent the years between birth and 17 in the small town of Medina, NY which sits right on the Canal. and we never sang that song. It wasn’t until I moved to North Carolina and saw a special on The Learning Channel about the Erie Canal that I heard it. Then again I was born in 77 so it probably is before my time

20

We sang that song all the way over in Los Angeles! This would have been around the mid-70’s.