There has always been underground folklore---songs and tales. The U.S.A. has always been a holier-than-thou nation so these were, more often than not, kept on bottom shelves under the old photo albums. I recall when Oscar Brand and Ed McCurdy's very mild albums with a bit of off-color humor were kept under the counter in record stores along with Whoopee John Wilfhart, Lenny Bruce, Red Foxx and somebody reading the Communist Manifesto.

Legman's book of limericks--dirty and not.

Vance Randolph's "dirty" songs he collected in the Ozarks. Also his book of tales Pissing In The Snow

The New Lost City Ramblers, in the 60s, put out a 7-inch 33 and 1/3 rpm mini-LP of four scatalogical songs called THE NEW LOST CITY BANG BOYS. It contained a song called "Bang Away Lulu"

"Bang away Lulu.
Bang away good and strong,
Whatcha gonna do for bangin'
Whenb Lulu's gone.

This was not only a bit "dirty" but it was a good song---as was Oscar Bran's "Blinded By Turds".

The cowboy songs genra has hundreds of these songs. Many are adolescent (as someone said) but some are just hilarious too. I'll never forget Mitch Podolac sticking me in a "Dirty Songs Workshop" at the Winnipeg Folk Festival around 1976 along with Kansas City's Bob Sukiel. The workshop was RIGHT NEXT TO THE CHILDREN'S AREA. All I could do was blush a million colors of red when it was Sukiel's turn to sing one of his bawdy cowboy ballads. It was great---but it was also bad festival planning. I knew a total of two songs--mild ones at that--that fit into the workshop.

I wanted to be underground during that hour for sure.

Art Thieme