The Keeper of the Eddystone Light is goofy enough as is, but it also easily lends itself to parody. The Keeper of the Asteroid Light, for example, was published in Sing Out! many years ago. Here's another parody, one for which I can find no information. Does anyone know the author or anything else about it? I learned it from the singing of Mitch Kessler at Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York, around 1963-1964, but I am unable to locate him now.

--- Steve


^^ THE LEADER OF THE GENERAL STRIKE

Tune: The Keeper of the Eddystone Light (traditional)
New words: anonymous(?)

Me father was the leader of the General Strike,
He slept with a Trotskyite one fine night.
From this union there came three:
A Stalinist, an anarchist, and the other was me.
Yo-ho-ho, for all you're worth,
You'll do a little time in Leavenworth!

One night while I was drunk with a pal,
Humming the Internationale,
A voice from the far left gave me a hail,
And there was me mother out on bail.
Yo-ho-ho, for all you're worth,
You'll do a little time in Leavenworth!

"Oh, what has become of my children three?"
Me mother she did ask of me.
"One for Russia has set sail,
And the other is rotting in a federal jail."
Yo-ho-ho, for all you're worth,
You'll do a little time in Leavenworth!

Then the Red Star flashed in her unkempt hair,
When I looked again, me mother wasn't there.
Then a voice came echoing out of the night:
"Oh, the Fascists take the leader of the General Strike!"
Yo-ho-ho, for all you're worth,
You'll do a little time in Leavenworth!