Who knows the complete lyrics to these "camp" songs?

Cafe Society
1

I recall a couple of tunes from my summercamp days, but I don’t remember all the lyrics.

The first one was goes:

Be kind to your web footed freinds,
For a duck my be somebodies mother…

And it’s sung to the tune of the Star Spangled Banner, I think.

The second one goes like:

Comet! It makes your face turn green!
Comet! It tastes like gasoline!
Comet! It makes you vomit!
So vomit, some comet, today!

I think there were some additional lyrics that I’m missing.

Does anyone know these songs? And can you help fill in the lyrics?

2

And be kind to your friends in the swamp SQUISH SQUISH where the weather is very very damp (pronounced “domp”).
And you may think that this is the end, and you may think that I am a liar (and he is!) but we’ll sing this song once again! Only this time a little bit higher!

(repeat at a higher pitch over and over while kicking feet like in the can-can line until no longer possible to sing higher then scream “he is!” after the last “and you may think that I am a liar!”)

Ah… Thank God I’m no longer a camp counslor…

3

Wait! You don’t mean the Star Spangled Banner! It’s a Sousa March, I believe… “Three Cheers for the Red, White, and Blue…” SOme sing it as “Hooray for the Red, White, and Blue…”

Sorry, I don’t know any more of the web-footed lyrics…

  • Jinx
4

Yeah, thats it. Thats what the “duck” song is sung to.

5

I believe that’s “The Stars and Stripes Forever”, used to close every Boston Pops concert.

6

In the 1960s, chorus leader Mitch Miller used to have a TV show called “Sing along with Mitch” that made Lawrence Welk’s show sound like Black Sabbath.

It was so awful that it was wonderful.

Imagine, if you can, a fortyish, rakishly goateed “hep” guy conducting an all-male chorus of a hundred or so, all singing smash hits like “Poor Butterfly” and “The Yellow Rose of Texas.” They did not harmonic arrangements: they sang in unison! The last half-hour of Miller’s hour-long show used to display the lyrics at the bottom of your TV screen so that you and your family out in Televisionland could sing along. I am not making this up.

Miller used to close every one of his shows with the song that you inquire about. I’m sure that there are many variants, but the lyrics that he used went like this:

“Be kind to your web-footed friends,
For a duck may be somebody’s mother.
Be kind to your friends in the swamp,
Where the weather is very, very ‘dahmp.’
Now you may think that its is the end:
WELL, IT IS!”

7

ERRATUM: Please read “They did not SING harmonic arrangements” above.

8

How about:

I’ve got a little pile of tin
Nobody knows what shape it’s in.
It’s got four doors and a running board
It’s a four door
It’s a Ford.
Honk, honk,
Rattle, rattle,
Crash,
Beep, beep.
Honk, honk,
Rattle, rattle,
Crash,
Beep, beep.

It has hand motions, too, but I’ll be darned if I’m gonna describe them! Suffice to say, the last eight lines involve tapping your nose, shaking your head, hitting yourself upside said head and doing the nose thing again.

Or another old favorite:

Ohhhh, I ran around the corner
And I ran around the block
And I ran right into the donut shop.
I picked up a donut
And I wiped off the grease
And I handed the lady a five-cent piece.
Wellllll, she looked at the nickel
And she looked at me
And said this nickel no good you see,
There’s a hole in the nickle and it goes right through.
I said, there’s a hole in the donut, too,
Thanks for the donut, bye now!

9

The Comet song is sung to the Colonel Bogey March, I believe. Isn’t that the tune they whistle in “Bridge On the River Kwai”, also? I never heard any other words to it. The version I heard is very similar to the OP’s:

Comet, it tastes like gasoline
Comet, it makes your mouth turn green
Comet, it makes you vomit
So get some Comet, and vomit today

10

Dear Kallessa,

Unless I’m mistaken, the donut song is sung to the tune of “Turkey in the Straw.”

But–to what tune is the “Ford” song sung?

Please advise, so I can make this song one of my collection of hopelelessly corny old standbys!

–Snug

11

I know slightly different versions of both these songs:
Be kind to your web footed friends
For a duck may be somebodie’s mother
Who lives all alone in a swamp
Where the weather is very, very damp (bom bara bombom)
You may think that this is the end
Well it is!

(I see that SnugTheJoiner as beat me to it. But he forgot the very importand bom bara bombom part.)
and

Comet! It makes your teeth turn green
Comet! It taste like gasoline
Comet! It makes you vomit
So get some Comet and vomit today.

Ah camp songs. I went to a sleepaway camp for underprivileged urban kids run by a Christian organization where I learned some somewhat inapropriate songs. Does anyone remember the one that involves one person repeatedly saying “zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom” like a bagpipe while the other person sings:
Tickle me, tickle me you know where
Up my kilt and through my hair
If you don’t tickle me in the right place
I’ll pick up my kilt and I’ll piss in your face

or this chestnut:

You can plant a watermelon right over my head
and let the juice (sluuuurp) slip through.
Oh southern fried chicken might taste mighty fine
But nothin’ could be sweeter than a watermelon riiiiiind.
Oh you can plant a watermelon right over my head
and let the juice (sluuuurp) slip through.

That last one was accompanied with a sort of softshoe tap dance parody. It used to crack the counslers up to see us poor, inner-city youths (read: black) do that last one.

Camp was fun.

12

Aside to SnugTheJoiner’s comments on Mitch Miller: There was also a series of “Sing Along With Mitch” albums (those large round black things that everyone used in the DarK Ages before CDs). Each album included a set of lyric sheets that could be torn out and passed around so that you could, well, sing along with Mitch. My family had just about the whole set, and many’s the evening we would sit in the living room singing along with the record.

13

One I remember was the “Juvenile Delinquent Song.” The lyrics went something like this:

I’m a juvenile delinquent and I can’ go home no more
Yeah, I’m a juvenile delinquent and I can’t go home no more
My momma hates me
Can’t go home no more
My daddy beats me
Can’t go home no more
And then there’s Granma
Swingin’ on the outhouse door
Without her nighties
Even though she’s 84
She’s very sexy
And Grandpa shouting “More, more, more!”
“I’m gonna getcha!”
Swingin’ on the outhouse door
And that’s not alllllll…

I think there may have been more lyrics but I can’t remember. The counselors at camp didn’t mind us singing the song as long as we didn’t teach it to the little kids.

14

Hmmm, Kallessa, I learned it this way:
I’m a little pile of tin,
Nobody knows what shape I’m in.
I got four wheels and a runnin’ board,
I’m not a Chevy, I’m not a Ford.
Honk honk
Rattle rattle rattle
Crash
Beep beep! …etc.

And a second verse:
Romeo and Juliet
On a balcony they met.
“Scram,” she said, “I’ve got a date,
Shakespeare’s coming in a '48.”
Honk honk… etc.

And yet another, separate song to the same tune:
I’m a little acorn brown
Laying on the cold, cold ground.
Somebody came and stepped on me,
Now I’m a little cracked you see.
I’m a nut (and here you begin knocking on your head)
Knock knock, knock, knock
I’m a nut
Knock knock, knock, knock
I’m a nut
Knock knock, knock, knock
I’m a nut, I’m a nut, I’m a nut nut nut!
Did anyone else learn the song that goes with any and all nursery rhymes? It’s pretty fun. Pick any nursery rhyme and call it out (for example, Little Bo Peep):
Little Bo Peep has lost her sheep
And doesn’t know where to find them
Little Bo Peep has lost her sheep
'Cause she threw them out the window, the window,
The second-storey window
High, low, low, high,
She threw them out the window!

Or,
Mary had a little lamb, little lamb, little lamb,
Mary had a little lamb
And she threw it out the window, the window,
etc.

Or,
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall
All the king’s horses and all the king’s men
Threw him out the window, the window,
etc.

I get a kick out of that one, don’t know why.

15

Hmmm, Kallessa, I learned it this way:
I’m a little pile of tin,
Nobody knows what shape I’m in.
I got four wheels and a runnin’ board,
I’m not a Chevy, I’m not a Ford.
Honk honk
Rattle rattle rattle
Crash
Beep beep! …etc.

And a second verse:
Romeo and Juliet
On a balcony they met.
“Scram,” she said, “I’ve got a date,
Shakespeare’s coming in a '48.”
Honk honk… etc.

And yet another, separate song to the same tune:
I’m a little acorn brown
Laying on the cold, cold ground.
Somebody came and stepped on me,
Now I’m a little cracked you see.
I’m a nut (and here you begin knocking on your head)
Knock knock, knock, knock
I’m a nut
Knock knock, knock, knock
I’m a nut
Knock knock, knock, knock
I’m a nut, I’m a nut, I’m a nut nut nut!
Did anyone else learn the song that goes with any and all nursery rhymes? It’s pretty fun. Pick any nursery rhyme and call it out (for example, Little Bo Peep):
Little Bo Peep has lost her sheep
And doesn’t know where to find them
Little Bo Peep has lost her sheep
'Cause she threw them out the window, the window,
The second-storey window
High, low, low, high,
She threw them out the window!

Or,
Mary had a little lamb
Its fleece was white as snow
And everywhere that Mary went
She threw it out the window, the window,
etc.

Or,
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall
All the king’s horses and all the king’s men
Threw him out the window, the window,
etc.

I get a kick out of that one, don’t know why.

16

Get yourself a copy of the book Greasy, Grimy Gopher Guts: The Subversive Folklore of Childhood by Josepha Sherman and T. K. F. Weisskopf for the lyrics to most of the songs mentioned in this thread.

17

Wow… Kallessa, The donut song brings back memories.

18

http://www.kididdles.com/ has a lot of lyrics, though I’m often thwarted in my searches there–probably because copyrighted songs aren’t often listed.

I know an awful of lot of camp songs! Does anyone else know the liverwurst song, or “Chocolate ice cream cone”?

And does anyone know “Georgie?”

Every morning at half-past eight
I jump out of bed, open the window, pop out my head,
and go EEEEEeeeEEEeee at Georgie
And every morning at half-past eight
He goes EEEeeEEeEe at me
Then one morning at half-past eight
I jumped out of bed, opened the window, popped out my head,
Down came the window, off rolled my head–
EEEeeeEEEeeEEee went Georgie.

Here’s one I don’t know all the words to–anyone out there to help?

Run down the meadow, scare up the milking cow,
Run down the beach kicking clouds of sand,
Walk a windy weather day, feel your face blow away,
Stop and listen, love you.

19

:slight_smile:

Back in my social worker days I had a senior citizen who had to put up with a teenaged neighbor who would crank heavy metal late after midnight when she was trying to sleep. At my suggestion, she put on Sing Along with Mitch and cranked it at 6 AM Sunday morning. Heh heh heh…

20

SnugTheJoiner, sorry, I don’t know what tune is used for the Ford song, maybe Beadalin knows. His/her (?) version is a tad different than mine (although the three rattles are correct, I forgot one), but mine definitly was a four door Ford!

We also sang one that started:

I want a man,
I want a man,
I want a mansion in the sky.

If my memory is right, it went downhill from there.