The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #78973   Message #1429326
Posted By: Stewie
07-Mar-05 - 08:18 PM
Thread Name: Lyr Add: 'Uncle Bud' Obscene Southern US Song
Subject: RE: Lyr Add: 'Uncle Bud' Obscene Southern US Song
A version of 'Uncle Bud', as sung by a Texan songster, George Bernard, was issued on a 1981 LP produced for Rounder by Mark Wilson and Lou Curtiss: Various Artists 'Just Something My Uncle Told Me: Blaggardy Folk Songs from the Southern United States' Rounder Records O141. Wilson noted: 'George Bernard from Washington, Texas, is in his late sixties and now a Holiness preacher. Hearing Sam Chatmon perform some of his rowdy pieces at the San Diego Folk Festival induced George to come into Lou Curtiss' record shop and announce "OK, I'm going to put all this stuff down for you so you'll have it and then I'm never going to to mess with it no more". And he hasn't'.

Although fairly full, 'Uncle Bud' seems relatively tame compared to some of the other pieces on the album. Unfortunately, my copy of the album is in very poor shape - probably from playing with worn needles on a variety of record players at parties over the years. Because of the condition of the record, Bernard's slurring and also his vigorous guitar accompaniment at times, the words are almost impossible to decipher. However, it begins:

Oh Uncle Bud, Uncle Bud, you know he's a man like this (x2)
You know, he caint get nothing from the women,
Always could do it to his fist

Uncle Bud, Uncle Bud, you know he's a man and a half (x2)
They tell me his nuts hang down (indecipherable) below his arse

At the end of the song the 'nuts' verse is repeated with the line changed to: 'You know his nuts hang down, baby, just below his arse'.

Wilson noted that there are other versions on Flyright's Library of Congress series and 'a remarkably dry-cleaned' rendition on Roosevelt Charles' Vanguard record.

I also have an obscene recording by Gary B.B. Coleman which has traditional floaters as well as original verses by Coleman - for example, it has 'the baseball bat' stanza. To give the flavour of piece, it begins:

I'll tell you a story about a man you don't know
He's a diry mother-fucker from the word say go
I used to think that Uncle Bud was nice
Till the sorry mother-fucker he stole my wife

He lives alone all by hisself
Had ten wives and he fucked them to death
Uncle Bud's got this and Uncle Bud's got that
Uncle Bud's got a peter like a baseball bat

It gets worse after that, with references to the anatomical attributes of Uncle Bud's women and several scatalogical stanzas. In true traditional spirit, Uncle Bud goes to hell but is too much for the devil:

Uncle Bud he died and he went to hell
He grabbed Tom Devil and he fucked him well
All the little devils up beside the wall
[Said] release him, daddy, 'fore he fuck us all

The reference is: Gary B.B. Coleman 'Too Much Weekend' Ichiban Records ICH-1140-CD.

I hope the above is of some help in your quest.

--Stewie.