The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #63874 Message #1042315
Posted By: Joe Offer
26-Oct-03 - 11:34 PM
Thread Name: Lyr Req: In Mobile / In Kansas
Subject: ADD: In Kansas
I suppose we ought to keep "Praties" in the other thread (click), but I think these two versions from Belden show the link from "Praties" to "Kansas" to "Mobile."
-Joe Offer-
IN KANSAS Potatoes they grow small in Kansas,
Potatoes they grow small in Kansas,
Potatoes they grow small and they dig them in the fall
And they eat them tops and all in Kansas.
The girls grow tall in Kansas,
The girls grow tall in Kansas,
The girls grow tall and they marry in the fall
And they part not at all in Kansas,
Don't you want to roam to Kansas?
Don't you want to roam to Kansas?
Don 't you want to roam
And get yourself a home
And be contented with the doom
In Kansas?
They chew tobacco thin in Kansas,
They chew tobacco thin in Kansas,
They chew tobacco thin
And spit it on their chins
And lick it in agin
In Kansas.
Potatoes they grow small in Kansas,
Potatoes they grow small in Kansas,
Potatoes they grow small,
And they dig 'em in the fall,
And eat 'em skin and all
In Kansas.
Notes: This is an adaptation to the purpose of regional satire of a widely known popular jingle, 'Potatoes they grow small.' S. Foster Damon in his Series of Old American Songs has a facsimile of a sheet music print of it issued by Atwill, New York, in 1844, with the title 'The Wonderful Song of "Over There" ' and a note: 'How it originated remains a mystery as yet.' Barry, making some notes on my ballad list a good many years ago, wrote: 'This is an Americanized version of an Irish song about the potato blight and famine of 1848, when the people did have to eat potatoes "tops and all";' but in view of the date of Atwill 's print this explanation will hardly stand. Hudson reports it as sung in Mississippi (FSM 216-7), but without any regional application; and Spaeth has it in Read 'em and Weep 33-4.
source: Belden: Ballads and Songs Collected by the Missouri Folk-Lore Society