Lyr Add: Fresh Strawberries; L. Frank Baum

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Fresh Strawberries; L. Frank Baum
From: katlaughing
Date: 02 Jul 04 - 11:24 PM

Thanks, Q! We just watched the documentary that Jack Haley, Jr. made on the making of the Wizard of Oz. I enjoyed learning more of Baum.

kat

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Fresh Strawberries; L. Frank Baum
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Jul 04 - 03:16 PM

scans pretty well to a number of tunes.

Subject: Lyr Add: FRESH STRAWBERRIES (L. Frank Baum)
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 02 Jul 04 - 03:12 PM

Joe Offer asked in the Attribution Permathread about "Song of the Fishes," in the DT, sung by Burl Ives among others. Along with the "Wizard of Oz" books, new rhymes and parodies of Mother Goose, Baum wrote many poems, most with a humorous twist.

Lyr. Add: FRESH STRAWBERRIES
L. Frank Baum

A family of strawberries sat on a vine
And their tunes did merrily pipe.
Said one, "this weather is just sublime
And I think that I'll get ripe!"

"Don't do it," the old vine warningly said
"For soon as you're red and sweet
The farmer will pluck you from out your bed
And sell you to people to eat!"

"Not so," cried a pert little berry, whose face
Was assuming a fine rosy blush,
"The farmer today said he'd send us away
To Dakota where money is flush.

"So come, every one turn your face to the sun,
Let's be ripe and away in a trice,
'Twon't hurt to be picked and we've surely begun
Already to look very nice."

Along came the farmer the very next day,
And picked both the ripe and the green.
And sent them away on the big railway
To the rich folks in Aberdeen.

They travelled for many a long weary day
'Til covered with dust and looking quite gray
And jostled 'til many were forced to decay
And others were shriveled and dried on the way.

They came at last to a grocer's stall,
And the grocer gaily shook them up,
Put the dead at the bottom- the living on top,
And a card labelled "Fresh" he placed over all!

Fresh Strawberries! how the poor fruit it mocks
"A quart for but twenty cents!"
(A very small pint is in every quart box)
And we buy them, and think they're immense!

17 May, 1890. Baum (1856-1919) ran a newspaper in Aberdeen, South Dakota, before moving to Chicago and, later, to Hollywood.
Strawberries

The website indexes all L. Frank Baum works, including those reproduced at Gutenberg, etc. L. Frank Baum Works