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Lyr Req: Looking for Gory Gory

07 Feb 09 - 07:01 PM (#2560414)
Subject: Lyr Req: Looking for Gory Gory
From: Dragonstik

I can only remember one verse (sung to Battle Hymn of the Republic)-

I watched him climb the mountain like a mountain goat
I saw him as he slipped and fell and tumbled down the slope
I saw him as he hit the rocks and like a pumpkin broke
and his head went rolling on

Gory gory what a hell of a way to die
Gory gory what a hell of a way to die
Gory gory what a hell of a way to die
and his head went rolling on

There was a lion hunter, a soldier in the trenches, and many others all different ending "and his head went rolling on"

I found a couple of others like it here but not that one


07 Feb 09 - 07:47 PM (#2560440)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Looking for Gory Gory
From: McGrath of Harlow

I suppose it makes sense having "Gory" instead of "Glory" - but in most variants like this, typically the ones with airmen getting splattered on the runway and so forth, it still seems to be sung as "Glory". After all, the people concerned have "gone to glory". So if you're looking for the words online, that might be the word to use in the searches.


07 Feb 09 - 08:13 PM (#2560457)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Looking for Gory Gory
From: Dragonstik

I have searched Google and nave seen two main and assorted other bits that have the "Gory, Gory, what a hell of a way to die" lyric but none in my estimation as good, mostly for concentrating on a single "incident".

Snippet.... The lion roared the gun went click.....


07 Feb 09 - 08:51 PM (#2560489)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Looking for Gory Gory
From: Charley Noble

Many of these parodies can be traced back to Dick Best's Folk Song collection, begun in the early 1950's. I remember running across "Gory, Gory Paratrooper" there as well as "Super Skier."

Cheerily,
Charley Noble


07 Feb 09 - 09:22 PM (#2560512)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Looking for Gory Gory
From: Joe_F

The New Song Fest (1955-1958) does not have the paratroopers' version, but it does have the skiers' and the rockclimbers'. Each of them sticks to its subject. The rockclimbers' one does not have the stanza quoted. It begins

"Will it go around the chockstone?" called the belayer, looking up.
Our hero feebly answered "Yes," and slowly inched on up.
He was trying to drive a piton when his foothold crumbled out,
And he ain't gonna climb no more.

    Gory, gory, what a hell of a way to die! (3x)
    Oh, he ain't gonna climb no more.

(I have emended "chalkstone" to "chockstone" & corrected the punctuation.)


07 Feb 09 - 09:23 PM (#2560513)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Looking for Gory Gory
From: maple_leaf_boy

The version I heard says: "And he ain't gonna jump no more" at the
end of the chorus, but the verse has the same lyrics.


07 Feb 09 - 09:44 PM (#2560521)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Looking for Gory Gory
From: Uncle_DaveO

Looking in the DT, I find this one, that seems to be Joe F's example.
Climber's Gory

This is more or less the way we sang it back in my climbing days.

Dave Oesterreich


08 Feb 09 - 01:17 AM (#2560596)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Looking for Gory Gory
From: Dragonstik

I looked and found those also. It is what was not here that I am looking for, Had I found it I would not be looking. I have been looking at Mudcat for some time and but for a few I have found what I was looking for. In this case I remembered a whole stanza. In some of the others not so much.