For no reason, this song popped into my head the other day. Nice to see I’m not alone.
One of my personal fav schoolyard songs is:
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.
He’s parked down on the corner in the green and yellow Ford.
With one hand on the bottle and the other on the trottle,
as the cops go whizzing by!
I suppose I wasn’t listening well, because I heard:
Great green gobs of greasy, grimy gopher guts
Mutilated monkey meat
chopped up little birdie feet.
Ten big barrels of all-purpose porpoise pus [where did I get that?]
and me, without my spoon.
I suppose I just liked the alliterative properties of “all-purpose porpoise pus”, but maybe it was hard to hear in the bus.
I once had a camper’s mother complain to the director that I had taught her little precious a ditty called “Dead Skunk In the Middle Of the Road”, though I think she was just jealous that her seven-year-old could now spell “olfactory”.
Great green gobs of greasy, grimy gopher guts
Mutilated monkey meat Vultures vomit at your feet
Great green gobs of greasy, grimy gopher guts
Aw, shucks, I forgot my spoon
From the Taiwan-based “colony” of Americans (AKA the Bilingual School):
Great green gobs of greasy grimy gopher guts
Mutilated monkey meat
Chop chop birdy feet
French-fried eyeballs swirlin’ in a pool of blood
Mommy I forgot my spoon
But I got my straw SLURP Ahh!
And, from the same source, we have this really long, ever-growing epic Chinese poem based on a roshambo chant, something about underwear and teachers and notebooks and such.
Petcat, that was hilarious! Writes Petcat’s version down for future reference
I read through them all & didn’t see my version, so here you go.
Great big gobs of greasy grimy gopher guts
Mutilated monkey nuts
Pasteurized panther puke
French fried eyeballs, dressed in kerosene
And me without my spoon
(I’ve got a straw)
Like ** Barrytown ** the “I’ve got a straw” part is sang to the tune of “…and many more”
Great green gobs of greasy, grimy gopher guts
Mutilated monkey meat
Little bitty birdy feet
Pails and pails of all purpose porpoise pus
And I forgot my spoon
Great big globs of greasy grimey gopher guts
Mutilated monkey meat
Little dirty birdie feet
All these things are very very good to eat
That’s what we had for lunch.
For supper…
Scab sandwiches with pus on top
Donkey vomit and camel snot
Eagle eyeballs drenched in blood
And for dessert we had some mud.
Crazy kids.
In the great green globs of gishy gooey gopher guts, mutilated monkey meat, fried up birdie feet,
and all size cans of all purpose porpoise puss
and me without my spoon…
I learned Devena’s version, but considering her location, that’s not too surprising. However, we always added “But I got my STRAAAWWW” to the end of it.
Oh, and that other “mine eyes” song? Ours went (and dear God, I never realized how violent it was before this):
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the burning of the school
We have tortured every teacher, we have broken every rule
We have shot the secretary, we have hung the principal
Our troops are marching on…
Geez, if I heard kids singing this in school today, I’d freak out.
The version I learned as a kid and the version I had to sing as a camp counselor are different, but neither has been fully captured here.
My version:
Great green gobs of greasy grimy gopher guts
Mutilated monkey meat
Itty bitty birdy feet
French-fried eyeballs swimming in a bowl of pus,
Oops I forgot my spoon.
Camp version:
Great green gobs of greasy grimy gopher guts
Mutilated monkey meat
Chopped-up piggies’ feet
French-fried eyeballs swimming in a bowl of pus,
And me without my spoon
Regurgitate! Regurgitate! Rah, rah, rah!
V-O-M-I-T! V-O-M-I-T! Vomit, vomit, yayyyy vomit!
Everything tastes better with blue vomit on it.
(the last bit is, I think, sung to an old Blue Bonnet margarine jingle)
*Mine eyes have seen the glory of the burning of the school
We have tortured every teacher, we have broken every rule
We even killed the principal but he didn’t care
Because he had no hair!
Glory, Glory what a heck of a time we had
And we ain’t goin’ back no more!*
Well guys, in my version the monkey meat is chopped and the birdie feet are mutilated, which goes to show that you all ended up with poor variations on the true version, But fear not, I shall enlighten your impoverished souls.
Ahem…
Great green gobs of greasy grimy gopher guts,
** Chopped up monkey meat, ** mutilated birdie feet,
French fried eyeballs floating in a pool of blood,
OOOoooh! I forgot my SPOOooooOOON!
As a kid myself, we sing some pretty awful stuff. There’s my personal favorite:
On top of old smokey
all covered in blood
I shot my poor teacher
with a .44 slug
I went to her funeral
I went to her grave
some people threw flowers
I threw a grenade
I looked in her coffin
she wasn’t quite dead
so I took a bazooka
and blew off her head
BOOM!
Of course, the “great green globs” song goes differently where I am:
great green globs of greasy grimy gopher guts
mutilated monkey nuts
bloody congealing rotten snot
a putrefacting fetal pig
boiling in a bowl of snot
…and you know what?
(slow) … I remembered my spooooooooooooooon!
Ah, I haven’t belted that one out at the top of my lungs since —well, since yesterday…
Everybody has a version of the refrain, but am I the only person who has ever heard one of the verses? I know there are at least two. Right now I can only recall the first one.
[Refrain]
Great green gobs of greasy grimy gopher guts
mutilated monkey meat
itty bitty birdy feet
french fried eyeballs wrapped around some fingernails
and I forgot my spoon
[First verse] (the tune is different - don’t know what to call it)
Some people eat
hamburger meat
while others eat potatoes.
And some must chew
their Irish Stew
along with ripe tomatoes.
I can’t understand
why in every land
they serve such peculiar dishes,
while wherever I go
they always say “no”
when I tell them what my wish is.
Sung to the tune of the Colonel Bogie March from Bridge on the River Kwai Comet! It makes your teeth turn green!
Comet! It tastes like gasoline.
Comet! It makes you vomit.
So grab some comet and vomit today.
**
Our version of the Battle Hymn parody was slightly different:
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the burning of the school.
We have tortured all the teachers; we have broken all the rules.
And tomorrow after school we’re going to hang the principal.
The school is burning down.
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Teacher hit me with a ruler,
so I nailed her at her door with a smokin’ .44
and she ain’t my teacher no more!*
Alternate versions to the the third line in the chorus were “hit her on the bean with a rotten tangerine” and “hit her on the butt with a rotten coconut.”
Actually, that line is from a different song. The first part sung to the tune of “Row, Row, Row” the second sung to “The old gray mare.”
Row, row, row your boat
Gently down the stream.
Throw your teacher overboard.
Listen to her scream.
Five days later floating down the Deleware
Chewing on her underwear
Heading for another pair
Two days later eaten by a polar bear
And that’s how the polar bear died.
Yeah, ForgottenLore, that was the verse I know too. Did you have a 45 record when you were a kid called A Rocket In My Pocket? That’s where I learned my version. Yours sounds a lot like mine.