I am just about to finally get around to releasing an album with this song on it, and I'm having a delightful time trying to figure out if the darned thing is public domain or if there is in fact, an estate it belongs to.

Strange situation:
The tune is mine / the arrangement is mine - and the lyrics have been somewhat modified to fit my style and sensibilities....
(trad. arr. I'd suppose...)
but I have no intention or inclination of claiming it as an orig.

Now here's what's real strange: Although a boyscout back in the 60's (in Ontario's northland) I never ever heard a version of this song.
In fact, knew nothing of its existence until I found a copy of the lyrics in a library book back in the fall of '93.
Loved the lyric, took it, modified it somewhat, wrote my own tune and arranged it, and there it is.
To this day, I STILL haven't actually ever heard anyone else sing this song...in any of its prolific incarnations.
The reason I finally decided to put it on an album? (It's got a pretty good tune, actually.)

My modified lyric:

There was a man from Pleasantville
his name was Dunderbeck
he sold a lot of sausages
and sauerkraut, by heck
he made the greatest sausages that you had ever seen
until the day he did invent
a sausage-meat machine
(ch)
Oh Dunderbeck, Oh Dunderbeck
how could you be so mean?
To ever have invented
such a terrible machine...
Now alley cats and long-tailed rats
will never more be seen
They'll all be ground to sausage-meat
in Dunderbeck's machine.

One day a little shy boy
came walkin' in his store
and he bought a pound of sausages, yeah
and he laid them on the floor
Then he began to whistle
he whistled up a tune...
Those sausages meowed and barked
-chased each other 'round the room...
(ch)
One day the thing got busted
The darned thing wouldn't work
And Dunderbeck, he crawled inside
to see what made it jerk.
His wife came walking in just then -
'cause she walked in her sleep
She gave the crank a heck of a yank
-and Dunderbeck was bleep!
(ch)

(a 4th verse that I left out...)

So if you have a cat or dog
you keep them under lock
'cause if you don't, I'm warning you
you're in for a big shock!
'cause if you buy some sausages
from Dunderbeck, right now!
You'll hear those little sausages
meow, and bow-wow-wow!


.........I always have been kinda curious to hear anyone else's tune for this - I'm sure the tune has trans-migrated and modified itself to death over the decades - given the age of the song.
My tune is sort of a 20's/30's ragtime styling - a bit like the carnival-calliope things we used to hear on old carousels - the kind with hand-carved horses. That's what seemed to fit, anyhow.

Joe Ryan's great-grandfather's version seems to be the one that fits the version I found the closest - and that has to go back to at least the 1880's or so.........perhaps this is close to what the original actually was.

I've always had a lot of fun finding lyrics and refitting them to roll off the tongue in a comfortable way.
'tho purists frown, I like to think of it in the grand old blues lyrics tradition - blues artists for divers' decades have been a-modifyin' and switchin' stuff to suit their own particular styles and figures of speech.

Incidentally - I remember back about 6 years ago wandering into a west coast kids' music website, and happening upon a forum where folks came looking for versions of old songs they'd heard as kids.
It was the most amazing thing - when I realized that the majority of this material had probably never been recorded.
I was incredibly moved - and somewhat sobered by how haunted these folks were - by the simple beauty of what they were trying to remember, and the way that the stuff brought back memories of their own childhoods (now long-gone) and certain loved ones they connected the tunes to.
It struck me right there - that this was a time, an era - long before the structured and commercialized commodification of a simple art, that belonged to the people, that existed very much in an oral tradition, and was handed down not to earn million$ in royalties and all-star status - but out of love that passed between generations.

Nice to know that in our Mc-Wally World - this can still happen.

cheers all -

jp