Here's some more minor tweaking of Harry Kemp's rant. However, my major reason for doing another posting is I've found a traditional chantey tune that seems to work for singing it, "Huckleberry Hunting." This news won't necessarily help the general Mudcat singer but the sea music crowd will have little trouble tracking it down:

By Harry Kemp, tramp poet and sometime sailor, NYC, 1938-1939.
Found at American Memory, WPA interviews.
Adapted by Charles Ipcar 2004
Tune: traditional sea shanty "Huckleberry Hunting"

THE CHANTEY OF THE COOK-2


The Devil take the cook, that greasy-bearded fellow,
Yo ho, haul 'im away!
Who feeds us odds and ends and biscuits whiskered yellow,
And the home port's a thousand miles away.

The Devil take the cook, that dirty rotten duffer,
Yo ho, haul 'im away!
Each day he makes the Captain fatter and bluffer,
And the home port's a thousand miles away.

The hardtack's moldy and the spuds they all are rotten,
Yo ho, haul 'im away!
And the tinned goods we get are seven years forgotten,
And the home port's a thousand miles away.

Now each in our hearts has marked the cook for slaughter,
Yo ho, haul 'im away!
For the coffee's only chickory, half-soaked in luke-warm water,
And the home port's a thousand miles away.

So put on your fancy duds and join our delegation,
Yo ho, haul 'im away!
We're gonna ask the Captain for a decent daily ration,
And the home port's a thousand miles away.

Sure, it ain't the cook's fault that we eat one day in seven,
Yo ho, haul 'im away!
It's the owners of this hooker, may they never get to Heaven,
And the home port's a thousand miles away.

It's the owners of this hooker that gave us meat that's yellow,
Yo ho, haul 'im away!
The cook, after all, he?s a mighty decent fellow,
And the home port's a thousand miles away.

Oh Lord God in Heaven, when their souls and bodies sever,
Yo ho, haul 'im away!
May the owners squat in Hell, gnawing at salt-horse forever,
And the home port's a thousand miles away.

'Cept for one thing, oh Lord God in Heaven,
Yo ho, haul 'im away!
Don't let them have no plum duff but one day in seven,
And the home port's a thousand miles away.

Forever and forever, and unto eternity,
The truck that we're fed every day. Amen!

And thanks again to Q for bringing this rant to our attention.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble