The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #106813   Message #2968093
Posted By: GUEST,Bill Kerby
18-Aug-10 - 04:23 PM
Thread Name: Lyr Req: Tapioca (from 'Siege at Red River')
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Tapioca (from 'Siege at Red River')
Thank ya, Jesus!

This song has lodged in my mind's craw for sixty years: all my friends thought I was nuts as I would sing it out (along with another old fave, "Grandma's Lye Soap,") at the odd time. I tried to explain it to them. You know That Movie We Saw, the western, the one with Van Johnson and (maybe) Jack Carson, where they were spies and singing "Tapioca" in their medicine show would signal...something...I forget just what.

Nobody remembered this AT ALL. They accused me of dreaming it, imagining it, making it all up.

Now, vindication. And no small relief. I was on the cusp of agreeing with them. Tapioca, tapioca, all we had to eat was tapioca...