Relatively Unknown Later Verses to Well-Known Songs

Cafe Society
1

Apropos of nothing in particular except waking up with some silly earworm song in your head… I’m fixing breakfast and humming that old western-cowboy “whoopie tie yi yo, git along little dogies” song. Flip the eggs, & start singing:

“Oh you’ll be soup for Uncle Sam’s Indians,
It’s ‘Beef, big beef’, I can hear them cry…”

& then it crosses my mind that it’s weird that I know that’s part of the song.

& then I thought about it for a moment and decided that I got exposed to a lot of those old songs that everyone knows but probably most folks didn’t learn all verses of. (I’m crediting, or blaming, Georgia public schools music teachers, the kind that would come into the classroom singing “children put away your books, sit up straight it helps your looks…” while passing out tambourines and books of folk songs to sing from). Then again, on this board, I doubt that I’m alone in having such lyrical trivia in my head. OK… recognize any of these lyric fragments?

… for patriot dream that sees beyond the years,
thine alabaster cities gleam, undimmed by human tears

America the Beautiful

the graceful white swan goes gliding along
like a maid in a heavenly dream

Home on the Range

then conquer we must when our cause it is just
and this be our motto, in God is our trust

The Star Spangled Banner. no kiddin’

But e’er we part from Freedom’s shores tonight
a song we sing for home and beauty bright
So then here’s to the sailor and here’s to the soldier too
Hearts will beat for him upon the waters blue

Sailing Sailing Over the Bounding Main

As I was walking I saw a sign there
and the sign said No Tresspassing
But on the other side it din’ say nothing

This Land is Your Land

Add any?

2

The verses to “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” are all completely unknown. All anybody knows is the chorus. Wikipedia cite

3

Second verse to the Duck Tales theme song:
When it seems they’re heading for the
Final curtain
Cool deduction never fails
That’s for certain
The worst of messes
Become successes

4

Apocalyptic second verse of Bob Marley’s “One Love”:

Let’s get together to fight this Holy Armagideon,
So when the Man comes there will be no, no doom.
Have pity on those whose chances grow thinner;
There ain’t no hiding place from the Father of Creation.

5

“And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion,
A home and a country should leave us no more?
Their blood has wash’d out their foul footsteps’ pollution.”

… much more fun at parties.

6

Isaac Asimov wrote an article on the Star-Spangled Banner, including its relatively unknown later verses. (IIRC it first appeared as one of his science columns in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction.) It’s apparently been “reprinted” on numerous web sites; here’s the first one Google gave me.

I think numerous Christmas carols would fall into this category.

7

Mojo Nixon & Skid Roper performed that song on a CD that I bought in the early '90s, and I always assumed that Mojo had made up the second and third verses. It wasn’t until I was investigating the song’s origins during the 2004JibJab controversythat I discovered that they were in the original.

One bright sunny morning
In the shadow of the steeple
By the relief office
I seen my people

8

How about the theme song from Friends? The best part is that the second verse is completely ridiculous.

You’re still in bed at ten, but work began at eight
You burned your breakfast, so far things are going great
Your mother warned you there’d be days like these
But she didn’t tell you when the world has brought you down to your knees
That
I’ll be there for you (when the rain starts to pour)
I’ll be there for you (like I’ve been there before)
I’ll be there for you (because you’re there for me too)

So, you’re two hours late for work and you’re actually cooking a breakfast? Work may not be a concern much longer. And “Your mother warned you there’d be days like these.”? What happened to “So no one told you life was gonna be like this.”?

9

I was surprised at a recent campfire sing-a-long to find out how few people knew the final verse of “Clementine.”

How I missed her, how I missed her
How I missed my Clementine
'Til I kissed her little sister
Glad you’re gone now Clementine…

10

I know that last line as “and forgot my Clementine” :slight_smile:

11

Why is this spoilered?

But I still won three Purple Hearts!

12

A good way to commit suicide is to sing the sixth verse of the British national anthem in a Glasgow pub on a Saturday night: -

Lord grant that Marshal Wade
May by thy mighty aid
Victory bring.
May he sedition hush,
And like a torrent rush,
Rebellious Scots to crush.
God save the Queen!

13

The oft forgotten final verse of:

Nanananana BATMAN!!
Nanananana BATMAN!!
Nanananana BATMAN!!
BATMAN!!BATMAN!!BATMAN!!

14

And very few know verses 2 to 5 of that otherwise memorable song. Similarly, I recently heard a fine rendition of all the verses of “La Marseillaise”: of course, I was only familiar with verse 1.

15

Holy shit! And these folks are part of the same nation! That makes ours look almost benign…

16

Because it gives away what the song is.

17

And may I say, those later verses could make one’s skin crawl, with their chatter about coffins, tyrants, and tigers ripping children from their mothers’ wombs!

There are two Irving Berlin songs similar to the Take Me Out to the Ball Game, written in the same Tin Pan Alley style of an eight-line introduction followed by an eight-line chorus, for which the introduction is usually dropped:

God Bless America (although the Irish Tenor performs the introduction when he sings at Yankee Stadium), and

White Christmas–We nitpicky types hate the reference to “Beverly Hills, L.A.” because Beverly Hills isn’t part of L.A.

18

You roll outta bed, Mr. Coffee’s dead,
the morning’s looking bright,
And your shrink ran off to Europe
And didn’t even write.
And your husband wants to be a girl.
Be glad there’s one place in the world

Where everybody knows your name,
And they’re always glad you came …

19

This may be super-easy, but…

There is just one moon and one golden sun
And a smile means friendship for everyone…

It’s a small world. (Is this verse played on the actual Disney ride? If so, it’s an easy question…)

And the most obscure one I know… the theme song from the movie Revenge of the Nerds, as heard during the opening credits/Louis-and-Gilbert-drive-to-college sequence, has the following three verses:

But upon purchasing the soundtrack CD, I was surprised to find out that there’s an additional verse, that comes between verse 2 and 3:

20

All those night when you’ve got no lights,
The check is in the mail
And your little angel hung the cat up by its tail,
And your third fiance didn’t show,
Sometimes you want to go

Where everybody knows your name…

(quoted from memory, not totally sure about the first line.)