In 1960, my Dad recited for me a suggestive poem about a farmer. I remember very little of it, and he refused to tell it to me again, because of its salacious nature. In the years since, I have heard other poems in this style.
FWIW, here’s what I remember, with the forgotten lines represented by dashes and the parts my Dad deliberately omitted at the ends of second lines represented by “…”:
*There was an old farmer who lived by the crick
A wicked old farmer who played with his …
Marbles in springtime-------[word rhyming with “door”]
------------ he called her a …
----------------------------------[word rhyming with “bit”]
The boys in the stable were shov’ling out…
Contents of stable," etc.*
Yes, I know what the words rhyming with “door” and “bit” were–in the second lines!
Does anyone know the rest of the poem?
Googling “There was an old farmer who lived” gives me this:
There was an old farmer who lived by the crick
You could tell by his actions he played with his…
Marbles with the woman next door
Who all the boys in the barnyard thought was a…
Very nice lady who walked like a duck,
And she she taught the boys a new way to…
Bring up their children and a new way to knit
While the boys from the barnyard were taking a…
Walk down by the crick, to show her the length of their…
Birch bark canoe.
There was an old farmer who lived by a rock
He sat in the meadow a waving his
fists at some boys who were down by the creek
their feet in the water, their hands on their
marbles and playthings and in days of yore
there came a young lady who looked like a
lovely young maiden, she sat on the grass
she lifted her skirts and showed us her
ruffles and laces and a neat little tuck
she told us she was learning a new way to
raise up her children and teach them to knit
while the boys in the barnyard were shoveling
straw from the stables and they worked day and night
If you think this is vulgar then bless you your right
“Miss Suzie had a steamboat,
the steamboat had a bell.
Miss Suzie went to heaven
and the steamboat went to
Hello operator,
please get me number nine.
If you disconnect me,
I’ll kick you from
behind the refrigerator,
there was a piece of glass.
Miss Suzie sat upon it,
and cut her little
Ask me no more questions,
I’ll tell you no more lies”
… and so on. A bunch of versions are at the linked page; we usually sung the second version.
And there’s also the Tampa Red “Yas, yas, yas” I’ve always called these ‘assumption songs’, though as far as I know, that personal term has never caught on with anyone else. People assume they know where the rhyme is going and then it doesn’t.
