Lyr Req: 5 Pounds of Possum (and other roadkill)

Subject: road kill
From: John W.
Date: 12 Oct 98 - 07:43 PM

Anybody know the words to a song about road kill, the refrain of which is "I've got five pounds of possum in my headlights tonight"?

Please reply to [e-mail]

Subject: RE: road kill
From: Joe Offer
Date: 12 Oct 98 - 07:55 PM

No possum on the menu tonight, but we have many other tasty varieties of road kill in another thread - just click here. Bob Schwarer mentioned the song as if he knew it, but didn't ost the lyrics. Maybe we can shame him into it this time. Click here for a delicious song called "Highway Hunter."
-Joe Offer-

Subject: Lyr Add: ROAD KILL CAFE (John Flynn)
From: Roger Himler
Date: 12 Oct 98 - 08:43 PM

This is not the song John W. is looking for, but obviously there is a taste for road kill on the Mudcat tonight.

The Road Kill Cafe
by John Flynn (of Philadelphia I believe)

Don't touch that brake.
Don't turn that wheel.
The life you save,
Could be our next meal.

CHO:
At the Road Kill Cafe,
We'll do it up your way.
We'll cook it fresh,
Right from your grille to ours.
Just scrape it off the tires,
And we'll toss it on the fire.
Come chew the fat at the Road Kill Cafe.

A gentle swerve,
Makes a squirrel hors d'oeuvre.
You just can't beat a,
Fresh raccoon pita.
That mangled Chevy,
Parked by the door,
Meant Bambi Parmesan,
For thirty-four.

CHO:

We love it when you,
Run down our menu,
Come chew the fat at the Road Kill Cafe.

Roger in Baltimore

Subject: DTADD: Tom the Toad
From: rich r
Date: 12 Oct 98 - 10:21 PM

AS long as we are on the subject of the squished and the squashed. The following song "O Tom The Toad" is a big hit with kids.

O TOM THE TOAD (tune: O Tannenbaum, or Maryland My Maryland for the Civil War buffs)

O Tom the toad, O Tom the Toad
Why did you hop upon the road (repeat)
You were my friend and now you're dead
You bear the marks of tire tread
O Tom the toad, O Tom the toad
Why did you hop upon the road?

ensuing couplets:

You did not see yon passing car
And now you're stretched out on the tar.

You hopped out on the yellow line
And turned into a streak of slime.

It's clear to all you're in a rut
We all did see your gushing gut.

There was a loud and awful crash
For poor old Tom had just got smashed.

And speaking of yellow lines. I recently picked up a paperback by Jim Hightower, a Texas radio commentator and populist agitator and wit, "There's nothing in the middle of the road but yellow stripes and dead armadillos"

rich r

Subject: RE: road kill
From: The Shambles
Date: 13 Oct 98 - 05:46 AM


When you snuggle up at night

Remember the armadillo

For he sleeps in the middle of the road

With the white line as a pillow

Subject: RE: road kill
From: John W.
Date: 13 Oct 98 - 09:16 PM

Unable to find the lyrics to the "five pounds of possum in my headlights tonight" song, my sisters and brothers and I started writing lyrics and sending them back and forth by e mail. The only ones I can remember are:

Road possum comes half gutted And skinnin' one ain't hard Just pull his butthole over his head and drop him in the lard

There's going to be good eatin' If mom can cook it right Martha Stewart should be out cruising for some Possum tonight. Yeeeeeee-haw!

Subject: RE: road kill
From: Bill D
Date: 13 Oct 98 - 11:37 PM

in the database is Nobody's Moggie Now by Eric Bogle one of the more 'poignant' of the squished & squashed songs....

Subject: RE: road kill
From: Alan of Australia
Date: 14 Oct 98 - 06:28 AM

G'day,
At a folk festival I was at recently there was a Road Kill Cafe - a fast food trailer decorated appropriately with the food having names such as battered bandicoot etc. Fortunately the food was really properly butchered steak etc.

Cheers,
Alan

Subject: RE: road kill
From: Barbara
Date: 14 Oct 98 - 09:21 AM

Around this part of the world, we have these LARGE slugs that are either bright yellow or that brownish mottled combination of colors found on a really ripe banana, and they are called - no surprise - Banana Slugs.
We also have scads of little towns (under 2,000 ppl) and each one has the obligatory summer festival weekend.
You heard it coming.
Carlton decided to put them together and has a Carlton Slug Festival.
Back when I was a newspaper reporter, they invited me to judge their bake-off. It featured such items as "Banana Slug Cream Pie", "Banana Slug Waffles", "Banana Slug Smoothies", and "Kosher Dill Banana Slugs".
Eewwwww.
I declined.
I told them I couldn't write about it if I participated (blow my objectivity, y'know, not to mention my lunch).
Oh, and they had all day slug races where the finish line was a trail of salt.
As far as I know, there isn't a song about this. Maybe it needs one, hey, and no, I wasn't volunteering.
Blessings,
Barbara

Subject: RE: road kill
From: Joe Offer
Date: 14 Oct 98 - 03:14 PM

Barbara, have you heard Salting of the Slug?
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: road kill
From: Barbara
Date: 14 Oct 98 - 03:44 PM

I have now, Joe, and I just gotta say, "Eeeewwww." How could I have lived without knowing that?

Subject: RE: road kill
From: Joe Offer
Date: 14 Oct 98 - 04:09 PM

Well, Barbara, Too Slim of Riders in the Sky did a first-rate rendition of "Salting of the Slug" on an album called "The Cowboy Way." That recording would be in your e-mailbox at this very moment, but that's one CD I didn't buy and I played the cassette to death.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: road kill
From: Art Thieme
Date: 14 Oct 98 - 11:56 PM

Why did the possum cross the road?

To prove to the chicken it could be done!

Try a record with a song called "THE ARMADILLO" (i think) by Robert Earl Keen

Subject: RE: road kill
From: Art Thieme
Date: 15 Oct 98 - 12:03 AM

CORRECTion!!!!!!!!

Why did the chicken cross the road??

To prove to the possum it could be done??????????

SORRY!! I was stopped tonight by a dyslexic state trooper. He was checking for I.U.D.s!!

Subject: RE: road kill
From: Dale Rose
Date: 15 Oct 98 - 12:42 AM

In Arkansas, we have a slightly different version~~to prove to the armadillo that it could be done! And then there is the one that goes: What did the banjo player do when she got lost in the woods? Easy, she just followed the armadillo out to the road! Or, what do you notice when you see a banjo player and an armadillo lying in the road? There will be skid marks in front of the armadillo. And finally, What is the difference between an armadillo and a banjo player lying in the road? The armadillo was on his way to a gig. Oh, well, that's way more than enough armadillo/banjo player/road kill "humor" from this end.

Subject: RE: road kill
From: northfolk
Date: 15 Oct 98 - 08:50 PM

Kind of surprised that no one mentioned that paean of highway literature, DEAD SKUNK (IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD), I think by Loudon Wainright III.

Subject: RE: road kill
From: rich r
Date: 15 Oct 98 - 11:52 PM

Did you all know that armadillos routinely give birth to identical quadruplets? They have also been used in medical research because the microbe that causes Hanson's Disease in us Homo saps can be cultured in armadillos.

rich r

Subject: RE: road kill
From: BSeed
Date: 16 Oct 98 - 03:00 AM

Jim Hightower in his There's Nothing in the Middle of the Road Except Yellow Lines and Dead Armadillos has a chapter about mad cow disease which in England was spread by processing dead cows into dietary supplements which were fed to living cows; eating meat from mad cows has been acknowledged to cause a lethal disease in humans. In the U.S., it is common in beef factory farms to feed the same kind of supplements to the cattle. In addition to dead cows, renderers turn dead horses, pigs, sheep, house pets, and road kill into these supplements (which are fed not only to cattle but to other meat producing animals). There have been a few cases of a disease much like mad cow disease striking humans here, as well, and there are probably far more than have been reported. It's all organically grown products for me from here on out. (Read the book if you can find it.) --seed

Subject: RE: road kill
From: Dani
Date: 16 Oct 98 - 08:16 AM

Ironically, I am just now able to read this thread after recovering from a particularly virulent kind of food poisoning. My larder leans more and more exclusively to tofu...

Another good book on this subject is BEYOND BEEF by Jeremy Rifkin. Read on an empty stomach.

Glad someone mentioned the Dead Skunk In The Middle Of The Road! Great song.

My daughter has a tape of 'Earthy Songs' the singer of which escapes me, but one song is solely about banana slugs, with lyrics like:

Banana Slug

Banana Slug

When some people see you they say UGH

Banana Slug

Banana Slug

When I see you I'll give you a HUG

and proceeds with a paean to the slug's important part in the big ecological picture. Will get the artist and lyrics if you're interested!

Dani

Subject: RE: road kill
From: Ralph Butts
Date: 16 Oct 98 - 08:33 AM

Art.....

That armadillo song you mentioned (Gary P. Nunn) is London Homesick Blues. Nothing about getting squashed, though, just a cowboy homesick for Texas.

It's the theme song for Austin City Limits.

.....Tiger

Subject: RE: road kill
From: Bob Schwarer
Date: 16 Oct 98 - 08:35 AM

I've got a live 'dillo digging up my lawn. They dig for insects,so spraying to kill the bugs should disuade the armadillos from digging. Don't work. I think they dig for they hell of it. They're pretty easy to catch, but then what to do with them. Remembering my old army experience I don't much care for eating them.

Bob S.

Subject: RE: road kill
From: northfolk
Date: 16 Oct 98 - 09:07 AM

Armadillo, sometimes known as possum on the half shell, has a funny history in the small town in northern Michigan that I am from. One of my barstool comrades had occasion to go to Texas on a short business trip, and on the way home brought a dead Armadillo back in a cooler, which he dropped in the road outside the home of a local newspaper editor...a real outdoor kind of guy. No common sense though...under the photo in the weekly fish wrapper the caption, "that he figured they were migrating north, but this one must have been faster than the rest." B'seed, Hightowers book isn't hard to find, in fact he is usually on tour around the country. for all the rest, seed is right on, this book is a must read for these times!

Subject: RE: road kill
From: Bob Schwarer
Date: 16 Oct 98 - 02:07 PM

Here's as much of "5# of possum" as I can understand. The song is done by a group "Troublesome Hollow" Don't know anything about them or who wrote the song.

My children are hungry and my dog needs a bone.
I ain't got a job now so I'm just driving home.
An hour after sundown & much to my delight
There's five pounds of possum
in my headlights tonight.

Well there's five pounds of possum
in my headlights tonight.
If I can run him over
everything will be allright.
We'll have some possum gravey
Oh what a wonderful sight
There's five pounds of possum
in my headlights tonight.

There's another verse, but I cannot understand much of it.

Bob S.

Subject: RE: road kill
From: Barbara
Date: 16 Oct 98 - 02:29 PM

ALLL RIIGHHT, all yew epicureans, how 'bout servin' up some tunes along with the entrees?
Blessings,
Barbara

Subject: RE: road kill
From: Lin in Kansas
Date: 28 Apr 06 - 08:15 PM

Additional lyrics for "Tom the Toad" (sent to me by my Scoutmaster brother): Enjoy these at your next Scout campout!

Lin in Kansas

_______________________________

^^ TOM THE TOAD
(Sung to O Tannenbaum)

Oh Tom the Toad, oh Tom the Toad,
Why did you jump out in the road?
(Repeat)
You used to be so big and fat,
But now you're small and red and flat.
Oh Tom the Toad, oh Tom the Toad.
Why did you jump out in the road?

Oh Tom the Toad, oh Tom the Toad.
Why are you lying in the road?
(Repeat)
You used to hop and jump about,
And now your guts are spilling out.
Oh, Tom the Toad, oh Tom the Toad,
So sad you're lying in the road?

Oh, Sue the Skunk, oh Sue the Skunk,
Why did you make my tires go clunk?
(Repeat)
You didn't look from east to west
Now on the road, there's such a mess.
Oh, Sue the Skunk, oh Sue the Skunk,
Why did you make my tires go clunk?

Oh Sam the Snake, oh Sam the Snake,
why do you lie out there and bake?
(Repeat)
You did not see that truck go by,
Now you look like a butterfly.
Oh, Sam the Snake, oh Sam the Snake
Why do you lie out there and bake?

Oh Possum Pete, oh Possum Pete
There's nothing left but hair and feet
(Repeat)
You thought you'd beat that bus across
But now you like a piece of moss
Oh Possum Pete, oh Possum Pete
You're like a Frisbee in the street.

Armadillo Al, Armadillo Al
You had to cross to see your gal
(Repeat)
You used to be so fat and plump
But now you're just a flat speed bump.
Armadillo Al, Armadillo Al
You had to cross to see your gal.

Subject: RE: road kill
From: Leadfingers
Date: 28 Apr 06 - 08:20 PM

I cant be arsed to sort out the whole thread so if this is a repeat , I am sorry - A mate of mine has a song with the chorus ' I'm living off road kill and sleeping in a hollow log . - Great fun Song

Subject: RE: road kill
From: NH Dave
Date: 29 Apr 06 - 12:11 AM

The link maker is on strike, so, one location of Five Pounds of Possum is http://www.fieldcamp.net/music.htm .

Dave

Subject: RE: road kill
From: Susanne (skw)
Date: 30 Apr 06 - 07:56 PM

On a more serious note, there is Ian Bruce's 'Sweet Fallen Angels', an anthem for all the poor roadkill us so-called 'humans' leave behind on our speeded-up path through life. Haven't got the lyrics ready, though. Will add them later.

Subject: Lyr Add: NOBODY'S MOGGY LANDS (Bob Kanefsky)
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 01 May 06 - 06:44 PM

Also, Bob Kanefsky's Moggy's Land
^^^
Well, how d'ya do, old Moggy the Cat?
I just noticed you landed where I almost sat.
D'ya mind if I push you a bit to the side?
I've been driving all day on the road where you died.
You've been squashed like some butterfly pressed between glass
Were you hit by a truck that was moving too fast?
Did he slam on the brake as he saw you go past?
Or, Moggy the Cat, did he step on the gas?

CHORUS    Did he honk the horn loudly?
          Did you stand your ground proudly?
          Did a shadow fall o'er ya as the truck mowed you down?
          Did your eyes glow in that fleeting darkness?
          Did the birds come and pick at your carcass?

The ground squirrels and mice all seem happy today,
The butterflies frolic; the hummingbirds play.
A mockingbird sits there composing a dirge
Till he finally yields to his scavenger urge.
The robins and sparrows all join in the feast
In their joyous relief that the terror has ceased.
And the birds dance around you, not sad in the least,
Like the Munchkins danced over the Witch of the East.

Old Moggy the Cat, I still wonder why
You road-kill look so damned surprised when you die.
Did you think that some animal spirit survives?
Did you really believe that a cat has nine lives?
Well, if that is true, this is life Number Ten
Getting ever more flat, spinning round now and then,
As the cars run you over again and again
And again and again and again and again!


Copyright 1989 Bob Kanefsky
Tune "No Man's Land," by Eric Bogle

Subject: RE: songs about road kill
From: GUEST,Dave Yasko
Date: 14 Jul 06 - 07:16 AM

Looking for a song, also titled Road Kill Cafe.
Don't know who it's by.

Well come on down to the Road Kill Cafe,
You never can tell what's on the highway today.
There's always good food on the ol' buffet.
They've got armadillo pie and squirrel soufle.

Subject: RE: songs about road kill
From: Valmai Goodyear
Date: 14 Jul 06 - 08:00 AM

Beware of the squirrel soufflee - it may contain traces of nuts.

Valmai (Lewes)

Subject: RE: songs about road kill
From: Scoville
Date: 14 Jul 06 - 09:24 AM

Five pounds of possum? What is that--an appetizer? We sing "Forty Pounds of Possum" here.

Subject: RE: songs about road kill
From: woodsie
Date: 14 Jul 06 - 09:38 AM

The graet Tone Deaf Leopard do a song called "Road Kill Cafe" as well it's hilarious

Subject: RE: songs about road kill
From: Valmai Goodyear
Date: 14 Jul 06 - 09:45 AM

You could add 'A hundred and forty pounds of Highwayman' to the list (Alfred Noyes's poem set by Andy Irvine). I think the chap doesn't sound very muscular - not with wrinkle-free skin-tight trousers and a bundle of lace at his throat - so, like a professional musician, he probably couldn't feed a family of four.

Valmai (Lewes)

Subject: RE: songs about road kill
From: GUEST,Rowan
Date: 15 Jul 06 - 12:15 AM

Some years ago I heard, in Australia, a bloke singing a song about the galahs that end up in the grilles of grain trucks because they were too careless to keep a good lookout while feasting on the grain left on the middle of the highway. Sorry, but that's the sum total of my info about this song.

But I recall that (around 1965) an zoologist in/from the northeastern USA was doing a survey of mammals. One of the standard techniques is to count road kills and it's often done at night. The story goes that one night he was out counting road kills and had stopped the car with the lights shining onto a specimen some yards away. He was about to get out and identify is when he saw a male of the species run to the corpse and mount it. He included both animals in his tally and published his observation, in a short note to "Nature", described as "'Davean behaviour' from the well-known limerick."

Subject: RE: songs about road kill
From: Stewie
Date: 15 Jul 06 - 02:23 AM

I posted the lyrics to Keen's armadillo song, mentioned by Art above, in this thread: CLICK.

--Stewie.

Subject: Lyr Add: FRED (Lee Cheney)
From: Matt_R
Date: 15 Jul 06 - 02:56 AM

Ray Stevens used to do this one:

FRED
(Lee Cheney)

Fred was a dog I used to own, he used to answer the telephone
And every now and then he took the truck to town for groceries.
Me and old Fred got along real well -- at the checkerboard, old Fred was hell
And he never minded takin' his turn doin' the dishes.


But when Fred was just about two years old, he started actin' kinda bold
Chasin' after that beagle that lived across the highway.
He was down there day and night, and I told him:
"Fred, you know you'll have to fight"
He said: "I've already whipped everything between here and the railroad!"


Oh, Fred, you are a good dog,
But the women got you runnin' wild and crazy as a loon.
Fred, you are a good dog,
Now you're chasin' cars around the bars and howlin' at the moon.

One night Fred came stragglin' in, he's lookin' bad, but he's wearin' a grin
He said: "Boss, I took a wife and I want you to meet her."
She didn't have very much to say -- it's plain to see she's in the family way
She said: "Fred you better go back and get my suitcase."

But Fred never made it to the other side, right in the middle of the road he died
Flattened by a trucker haulin' dogfood.
Now his wife is livin' here, yappin' at her kids and drinkin' my beer, and she won't drive the truck, nor do the dishes!

Oh, Fred, you were a good dog,
But you never knew when to chase 'em and when to turn around and run.
Oh, Fred, you were a good dog,
But you're flat out on the highway, a-dryin' in the sun.

Now old Fred's gone, and I'm kinda glad, 'cause if he was here now he'd sure be mad...
Not one of those pups looks anything like him!

Subject: RE: songs about road kill
From: Willie-O
Date: 15 Jul 06 - 10:31 AM

It's just one of the sensations of the season...

"The fog is curling up off the two-lane blacktop
Where some poor skunk met his doom,
And the five-eleven highway is taking you home
Underneath a summertime moon.

If one deer crosses there'll be more to follow
And you can't hit the brakes too soon
When the five-eleven highway is takin you home
Underneath a summertime moon."


Ah, summer in Lanark County.
W-O

Subject: RE: songs about road kill
From: Charley Noble
Date: 15 Jul 06 - 10:33 PM

I'm surprised that no one has mentioned "Wreck on the Highway (I Didn't hear Nobody Pray)" by the Blue Sky Boys. Of course that carnage involved so-called evolved animals.

We folks in Maine used to have a Road Kill Cafe up on the shores of Moose Head Lake. I ate there once, enjoyed some barbeque. I believe the place subsequently burned down, and the owner is still serving time for arson. The menues were amusing!

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: songs about road kill
From: Mark Ross
Date: 16 Jul 06 - 10:27 AM

Jay Ungar used to do a song, I think it was called THAT BIG OLD MOTHER TRUCKER LEFT ME FLAT.


Mark Ross

Subject: RE: songs about road kill
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 16 Jul 06 - 02:56 PM

From the prevention perspective, Claudia Schmidt has one I really loved, sort of a moaning spiritual: "Make It Across the Road".

"I'm pleading with you, from a mother's heart, to make it across the road..."

~ Becky in Tucson

Subject: RE: songs about road kill
From: Girl Friday
Date: 16 Jul 06 - 06:06 PM

You can find our Roadkill Cafe song ,as mentioned by Woodsie,on our website.......... http://www.tonedeafleopard.bravehost.com
Tonedeafleopard

Subject: RE: songs about road kill
From: Peace
Date: 16 Jul 06 - 06:09 PM

http://www.tonedeafleopard.bravehost.com/

Subject: RE: songs about road kill
From: Girl Friday
Date: 21 Jul 06 - 11:30 PM

Thanks Peace for blue clickying our website. Bless you my dear.

Sue Leopard

Subject: RE: songs about road kill
From: lamarca
Date: 22 Jul 06 - 03:41 PM

KathWestra once purchased a box of "Roadkill Helper" to give as a gag (literally) gift. The company that made it was sued by General Mills for copyright infringement, and they pulled both it and "Spotted Owl Helper" off the market.

However, the author of "A Slob in the Kitchen Cookbook", Karen Duffy, has a recipe for a spice rub mixture she calls "Duff's Roadkill Helper" y'all might want to try.

The author and NPR storyteller, Bailey White, told a story about telling her Mama that she couldn't cook roadkill unless she could write down the make, model and license tag of the car that hit it...

Subject: RE: songs about road kill
From: jojofolkagogo
Date: 27 Jul 06 - 12:36 PM

Hello Woodsie, where were you the other evening when TDL "guested" at OFF ???

They did some greats, including Road Kill Cafe, and their "Washing Day" and also their famous (by now) Wee and a Shave ....

A great evening was had by all, uproars of laughter all around, great stuff ...

Dave Cunningham turned up even, so where were YOU ???


Jo-Jo

Subject: RE: songs about road kill
From: Girl Friday
Date: 30 Jul 06 - 06:34 PM

Woodsie arranged to be on nights just to avoid us. Fine T.D.L. fan he is!