I think I'd better copy this article because it looks like it's destined to disappear from the Internet soon. It's available only in the Google cache I linked to above.

Sing about Webster Lake and It Sounds Like You're Gargling
By Ed Patenaude
[Worcester, Massachusetts] Telegram & Gazette , July 15, 1999

There's a new song about Webster Lake on the airwaves. Number it the second or third and credit it to Shades of Grey, an area rock 'n' roll band. Numbering is necessary because a copyrighted lake song came out decades ago, another tune followed at some time, and now we have the "Webster Lake Song," copyrighted earlier this year.

Songwriters Will Heagney, Will Mahoney, and Bert Reed authored the first number, "By Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg," in the late 1920's. The song published by Harry von Tilzer Music Co. of New York, gained public attention when it was played by the Fred Waring Orchestra. Ethel Shutta and George Olsen, a 1930's vaudeville and radio team, featured it in their repertoire at one time, but its popularity was probably short lived.

I first heard the song around 1952. Webster's Heller Brothers--Hyman, a physician, and Samuel and Abraham, both lawyers--gave their rendition of the tune at a Sons of Israel Synagogue brotherhood breakfast. I was a guest of the late Israel Frome, a grain dealer and a Dudley selectman at the time. The late Catherine Mason was accompanist for the Hellers. The brothers gained regional fame, singing the long-name song at the benefit shows throughout the area. Abraham was the only survivor when he taped the song for a network program. Charles Osgood may have been the moderator.

What an Ending
While the lake's Indian name is repeated six times in the Heagney-Mahoney-Reed lyrics, the tune is about atmosphere for lovers seeking romance. Some of the lead lines are: "Oh, we took a walk one evening and we sat down on a log / By.... / There we told love's old sweet story and we listened to a frog / In.... / We were wrapped up in a fog / At...." The lake's name followed these and other lines. The tune was built around the 45-letter name. "Crickets chirped a serenade," a love song "ended with a kiss." It was a novelty tune pure and simple.

Lois Rosebrooks once told me that the late, great Duke Ellington worked on a song about the lake's long name after he appeared at the Mohegan Ballroom, summer dance venue in the 1920's and early 1930's on Thompson Road in Webster. The location is now a Goodyear Auto Service Center.

Merman and Bolger
Ellington sketched an outline, but never finished the piece. He autographed the unfinished work and gave it to Mrs. Rosebrooks. Later, the Ellington Orchestra appeared at Webster Town Hall, giving a benefit for the Hubbard Regional Hospital Guild when Rosebrooks was its president.

I haven't any idea when the second lake song came along. I got a tape about 15 years ago, the results of a conversation with the late Ralph Fleming. He had an extensive record collection and planned to give it away. He was taping his favorite platters, and sent me one with the "Lake Song." There's nothing to identify the vocalists, though Fleming said Ethel Merman and Ray Bolger were the performers. And that's who they sound like. The tune doesn't mention any place or state, reduces the lake's name to a crazy cadence, and uses the discredited interpretation of the long lake name--"You fish on your side, I fish on my side, and nobody fish in the middle"--as its focal point. With lines like "you talk Indian," the piece might not stand muster in today's society.

Neccessary for Fun
The Shades of Grey song, "Webster Lake," was donated to the Town of Webster "for use seen necessary for fun, promotion, school functions, or themes," June 11 at Point Breeze, a restaurant and entertainment venue, where the band premiered the new tune. Selectman Jan Kujawski and Mark Dowgeiwicz represented the town at the ceremony. A certificate given to the Board of Selectmen, bears the signatures of Shades of Grey performers Steve Willey, Darryl Peck, Rob Armstrong, Dave Bell and Brian Konicki. People talked about the song, linking it to "The Bus," a classic rock station on WORC and-or WGFP signal. I tuned to the station for short periods at different times on several days without hearing the Shades of Grey message.

Listening to Rock
So I called WGFP last week and disc jockey Steve Lyons played the song during his 5 to 5:30 p.m. segment. The CD was more than I could absorb through a single play, but the name seemed clear and true. I found the lyrical switch from Chargoggagog-gmanchauggagogg to Chau-bunagungamaugg interesting. To say anything else would brand me for what I am--practically tone deaf.

Willey, the SOG singer, made up the words to teach his daughter how to pronounce the lake's name, according to an e-mail letter. "We broke the record here on the Bus," said John Stevens, WORC program director. Reaction has been mostly good, he said. "Some like it," others see it as "a little racy."

Webster Photo & Music Mart retails the CD, Stevens said. I went to the downtown store in hopes of seeing Richard or Sandy Bates, long-time owners of the business. Their grandson Matt Bates was on duty. The Shades of Grey offering "sells pretty good," he said.