# Gooey Grimey Gopher Guts!
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gooey-grimey-gopher-guts/106198
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [April 29, 2002, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gooey-grimey-gopher-guts/106198 "2002-04-29T01:57:14Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Jinx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jinx)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2002, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gooey-grimey-gopher-guts/106198/1 "2002-04-29T01:57:14Z")
What are the words to this camp favorite? It is sung to the tune of “The Old Gray Mare - She Ain’t What She Used To Be…”
Surely some Dopers will know…or, should I ask Bill Murray? 😉
Thanks,
- Jinx
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### Author:  [@grendel72](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grendel72)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2002, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gooey-grimey-gopher-guts/106198/2 "2002-04-29T02:02:57Z")
I don’t remember all of the words, but I believe it’s **greasy, grimey gopher guts**.
By the way I brought straws for all of you who forgot yours.
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### Author:  [@RaCha\_ar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RaCha_ar)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2002, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gooey-grimey-gopher-guts/106198/3 "2002-04-29T02:06:58Z")
It’s apparently the chorus of a folk song called “There’s Blood on the Saddle.” Ain’t that charming?
[http://www.grandfolkies.com/goblyr.htm](http://www.grandfolkies.com/goblyr.htm) has the full lyrics.
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### Author:  [@Fern\_Forest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fern_Forest)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2002, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gooey-grimey-gopher-guts/106198/4 "2002-04-29T02:18:56Z")
The only song better the **Scab Salad** for a 10 year old boy.
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### Author:  [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2002, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gooey-grimey-gopher-guts/106198/5 "2002-04-29T02:22:01Z")
The novel _Runaway Ralph_ has a passage when ten year-old campers sing a variant:
Great green gobs of greasy grimy gopher guts;
Chopped up baby parakeet;
Simulated monkey feet…
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### Author:  [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2002, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gooey-grimey-gopher-guts/106198/6 "2002-04-29T03:12:40Z")
I first heard this on the 45 rpm single from Jambox that came out in 1980. Jambox was a scruffy little local band in St. Louis in the late 1970s that never really got off the ground. The one concert they headlined was a disaster when they nearly set the stage on fire. Its members lived together in an old house in South St. Louis called the Funk Mob. They were all whiteboy fans of Parliament/Funkadelic, but their own style of music was called “Change Music” meaning music that changes its rhythm or key signature or something at least once in every piece. The guitarist, Tony Patti, was also a cartoonist who promoted the band with a Jambox comic book that was way better than the music they made. The members included Professor Labotomy (Patti), Slashbo, Danny Fo Jammi, and Rico de Bool. The band broke up when “Rico” joined the Navy in 1980.
Anyway, their single, _The Change Music Variety Show_, opened with these introductory lines sung to the tune of “The Old Gray Mare”:
_Girls are made of greasy grimy gopher guts,
Mentholated monkey meat,
Chickens’ little dirty feet,
French fried eyeballs rolling down a dirty street,
That’s what Jambox loves_.
Strangely, they had their girlfriends singing these “lyrics.” I thought they had originated the song, but only now found out that they only adapted it.
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### Author:  [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2002, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gooey-grimey-gopher-guts/106198/7 "2002-04-29T03:54:40Z")
"Great big globs of
Greasy, grimey gopher guts!
Chopped up baby parakeet!
Mutilated monkey feet!
Great big gobs of
Greasy, grimey gopher guts
And I forgot my spoon!"
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### Author:  [@Juniper200](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Juniper200)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2002, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gooey-grimey-gopher-guts/106198/8 "2002-04-29T03:59:13Z")
This is the variant I learned:
\Great big gobs of greasy, grimy gopher guts
Mutilated monkey meat
Itty bitty dirty birdy feet
Great big gobs of greasy, grimy gopher guts
And you eat it with a spoon!\
Taught to me by my mom, no less. 😃
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### Author:  [@Juniper200](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Juniper200)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2002, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gooey-grimey-gopher-guts/106198/9 "2002-04-29T04:03:34Z")
Mom taught me gross camp songs while she should have been teaching me UBB code.
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### Author:  [@Juniper200](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Juniper200)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2002, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gooey-grimey-gopher-guts/106198/10 "2002-04-29T04:04:52Z")
Oh hell. vB code. I’m going to bed.
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### Author:  [@justwannano](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/justwannano)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2002, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gooey-grimey-gopher-guts/106198/11 "2002-04-29T04:49:33Z")
Back in the 50’s a 10 year old just sang
Great big gobs of greasy grimy gopher guts
mutilated monkey nuts
and thats all I can remember.
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### Author:  [@Payne\_N.Diaz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Payne_N.Diaz)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2002, 5:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gooey-grimey-gopher-guts/106198/12 "2002-04-29T05:44:14Z")
You forgot the line about “all-purpose porpoise meat”!
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### Author:  [@Dirty\_Earthworm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dirty_Earthworm)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2002, 5:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gooey-grimey-gopher-guts/106198/13 "2002-04-29T05:56:12Z")
Great big globs of greasy grimey gopher guts
Mutilated monkey’s meat
Little birdies’ dirty feet
Great big globs of greasy grimey gopher guts
And I forgot my spoon
Second verse, same as the first…
I remember singing this in elementary school music class. Strange, I know.
-Dirty
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### Author:  [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2002, 7:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gooey-grimey-gopher-guts/106198/14 "2002-04-29T07:30:48Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by RaCha’ar \*
> \*\*It’s apparently the chorus of a folk song called “There’s Blood on the Saddle.” Ain’t that charming?
>
> [http://www.grandfolkies.com/goblyr.htm](http://www.grandfolkies.com/goblyr.htm) has the full lyrics. \*\*
My word, that looked authoritative.
The version from my own childhood was a teensy bit different:
_Great green gobs of greasy grimy gopher guts,
Chopped up birdies’ feet,
Marinated monkey meat.
French-fried eyeballs rollin’ in a pool of mud
And me without a spoon._
Ah, nostalgia.
Hell, it’s only twelve-thirty. I think I’ll go wake up Michaela right now and teach it to her.
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### Author:  [@RTA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTA)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2002, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gooey-grimey-gopher-guts/106198/15 "2002-04-29T12:55:12Z")
Um, I can only help out a little.
_Great green gobs of greasy grimy gopher guts
Oscillated monkey feet
Dilapidated turtle ears
Put 'em in a bowl with (something something something else)
(conclusion)_
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### Author:  [@Sealemon88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sealemon88)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2002, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gooey-grimey-gopher-guts/106198/16 "2002-04-29T13:06:42Z")
\*Gobs and gobs of greasy, grimy gopher guts
Marinated monkey meat
**Bubble Girl’s** little dirty feet
French-fried eye balls dipped in a bowl of glue
I forgot my spoon (Have a straw!)
Blood sandwiches, spuds(?) on top
Monkey vomit
Camel snot
Rabbits eyeballs dipped in glue
Yummy, yummy good for you.\*
Oh, yeah…middle school was SO educational for me…
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### Author:  [@G.B.H.Hornswoggler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/G.B.H.Hornswoggler)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2002, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gooey-grimey-gopher-guts/106198/17 "2002-04-29T13:41:56Z")
For those who want to do more serious, intensive research into the subject, there is a book chock-full of these rhymes:
[**Greasy Grimy Gopher Guts**](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0874834449/qid=1020087531/sr=1-4/ref=sr_1_4/002-8785107-1471239)
(And I’m not just plugging it because I’m a friend of the author…OK, maybe I am.)
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### Author:  [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2002, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gooey-grimey-gopher-guts/106198/18 "2002-04-29T14:52:03Z")
GBH, if you really ARE the author of that book, let me tell you I read it as soon as it came out and loved it! Told my family & friends about it, too.
The version sung at MY summer camp:
Great big gobs of greasy, grimy gopher guts
Morselated monkey meat
Little dirty birdie feet
All wrapped up in all-purpose porpoise pus
And me without my spoon!
(sometimes added: “But I brought a straaaaaw”)
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### Author:  [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2002, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gooey-grimey-gopher-guts/106198/19 "2002-04-29T14:53:06Z")
Oops, just read “friend of the author,” not author—well, tell your friend I enjoyed it!
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### Author:  [@Creaky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Creaky)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2002, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gooey-grimey-gopher-guts/106198/20 "2002-04-29T15:00:39Z")
I love this thread!
Okay, this is what we sang at my camp. It’s just another variation on a theme, as it were. Hell, it beat “99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall”, which is naturally what we used to torture the bus driver with until it was banned. I guess the guy had bad nerves.
"Great green gobs of greasy, grimy gopher guts,
Mutilated monkey’s meat,
Chopped up baby parakeet.
French fried eyeballs swimmin’ in a pool of blood,
And I forgot my spoon!
And then theerrreee’s…
Scab sandwiches with pus on top,
Dried up vomit and gorilla snot!
Put 'em all together and whaddaya got?
Breakfast, lunch and dinner at your favorite Hot Shop!"
Man, I loved summer camp. We were all such little barbarians.
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