The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #16283   Message #612878
Posted By: Knitpick
19-Dec-01 - 12:00 AM
Thread Name: Lyr Req: The Prodigal Son
Subject: RE: The Song Nobody Knows
(Actually, it's Songbob, using Knitpick's Mac, since it's the one attached to the cable modem).

Someone opined, concerning the Prodigal Son, "(What if the boy had stayed and fed the swine? He might have got the farm and been a big wheel in the livestock industry)?"

Funny you should mention that idea. Rudyard Kipling wondered the same thing, and wrote a wonderful poem called "Prodigal Son, Western Version," which has the son getting stale at home and going off to the job with the pigs again, with this idea in mind:

So I was a mark for plunder at once,
Lost all my cash (do you wonder?) at once,
But I didn't give up and knock under at once,
So I worked in the yards for a spell.
Where I spent my nights and days with hogs,
Shared their milk and maize with hogs,
Till I finally learned what pays with hogs,
And I have this knowledge to sell.

I've set the poem to a tune, since I didn't know of any other tune, and once in a while try to remember it (it's longish).


As for Bohunkus, I have no clue.


Songbob Clayton