FOGGY, FOGGY DEW

When I was a bach'lor, I lived by myself,
I worked at the Weaver's trade;
The only, only thing I did that was wrong
Was to woo a fair young maid.
I wooed her in the winter-time,
And in the summer, too;
And the only, only thing I did that was wrong,
Was to keep her from the foggy, foggy dew.

Oh, I am a bach'lor, I live with my son;
We work at the weaver's trade;
And ev'ry single time I look into his eyes,
He reminds me of the fair young maid.
He reminds me of the winter-time
And of the summer too;
And the many, many times that I held her in my arms,
Just to keep her from the foggy, foggy dew.

Source: Carl Sandburg, American Songbag (1927), page 14-15

Sandburg's notes: This arrangement is from a song rather widely known, which I heard first from Arthur Sutherland and his bold buccaneers at the Eclectic Club of Wesleyan University. A middle verse is censored from this version as being out of key and probably an interpolation. At least, it is what they call apocryphal and of the twilight zone. Observers as diverse as Sinclair Lewis, Sherwood Anderson, Arthur T. Vance, and D.W. Griffith say this song is a great condensed novel of real life. After hearing it sung with a guitar at Schlogl's one evening in Chicago, D.W. Griffith telegraphed two days later from New York to Lloyd Lewis in Chicago, "Send verses Foggy Dew stop tune haunts me but am not sure of words stop plead do this as I am haunted by the song."

Interesting notes.
-Joe-