I ran into the lining out joke which follows when searching for the Fret Buzz Blues thread a while back.

From Sing Out!, Vol. 26 No. 5 (1978), "No Fiddle in My Home" by Hedy West, p. 3.

My Eyes Are Dim

[This article views the coexistence, at times easy and at times uneasy, of Southern Mountain religious and secular music. It is based on interviews I made in 1976 in Union County, Georgia with my paternal grandmother, Lillie Etta Mulkey West, fourth recorded generation North Georgian. She was born in 1888 in the Cartecay District of Gilmer County, Georgia.]

My dad used to tell the story of this old preacher. He got up in church wiping his eyes. He had a hymn book in his hand, and he said, "My eyes are dim. I cannot. see." This old woman started singing:

My eyes are dim, I cannot see
I did not bring my specs with me (2x)

And he finished it up, "I did not bring my specs with me." She sang that, and, well th' whole congregation sung it then.

And the preacher said, "I didn't give that out to sing. I only meant my eyes were dim!" An' they sung that.

He said, "I didn't mean to sing that at all. I think the devil's in you all." And they sang that!

(Other versions of this "lining-out" jest one from 1849, another from 1854, are printed in Pennsylvania Spirituals by Don Yoder, Pa. Folklife Society, 1961).

That tickled us. Not often, but when he'd take a notion dad would tell little things like that.

My eyes are dim, I cannot see
I did not bring my specs with me

I didn't give that out to sing.
I only meant my eyes were dim!

I didn't mean to sing that at all.
I think the devil's in you all.