BORN IN CINCINNATI
(To the tune of The Wearin' o' The Green)
I was born in Cincinnati
Up in Iceland, in the South
And that's the very reason why
My voice is in my mouth.

'Twas a hot and frosty morning,
Yes, quite windy, I believe,
And the great big trees were making boughs
For they were going to leave.

And I went to sleep in a river
Just because it had a bed
And I took a sheet of water
Just to cover up my head.

If a rooster could but carry a hod,
A hen would lay a brick.
There are cripples dying nowadays
Because they cannot kick.

And the veg'tables were racing
To win the Butter Cup,
And the cabbage got so far a-head
The tomatoes couldn't ketchup.

And the pigs was making pigsties
And the grass was making hay,
And the bumblebees was making bum . . . .
For Ta-ra-bum-de-ay!

Collected in Minnesota in the late 40s, from an
old (then about 70) Irishman named Frank
McGovern.

David R. Oesterreich
^^