I first heard this song in 1957 from Bob Mixter, a New England-born neighbor in Dobbs Ferry, NY. His words -- which I of course prefer -- are given below. I've always wondered about its origin; Mixter didn't know, but said he'd heard it in his family since childhood.


                        The Whizz Fish

On the swinging branch of a rubber tree, about a million miles away
On the banks of the Uhruh River in far-off Uruguay,
There sits a lonely monkey; in his eyes there is a gleam,
And his tail dangles idly, just beneath that limpid stream.

Well now, once every nineteen minutes, he whirls it through the air,
And the South American whizzfish is a'dangling helpless there.
The bite of the hungry whizzfish is tough on the tender tail,
And if you pause to listen, you can hear that monkey wail,

        "Great shades of Isaac Walton! Was that another bite?
        If I hadn't been half so hungry, I'd have quit this job tonight.
        But I loves that tasty whizzfish, though its bite drives me insane --
        Still I do so wish for to catch that fish that I guess I'll stand the pain."

Now one fine day there come a jammerfish, with its jaws six feet by nine,
Come a'rambling down that river, grabbed ahold of that monkey's line.
That fish kept on a'rambling, most unconcernedly,
While the monkey screamed and hollered, and clung to that rubber tree.

Well, the tree stretched out like a garter, 'bout a million miles or so,
And the fish let go, and the monkey flew like an arrow from the bow.
Folks say he's still a'flying, and if you stop and try
You can hear that monkey murmur as he hustles through the sky,

        "Great shades of Isaac Walton! Was that another bite?
        If I hadn't been half so hungry, I'd have quit this job tonight.
        But I loves that tasty whizzfish, though its bite drives me insane --
        Still I do so wish for to catch that fish that I guess I'll stand the pain."