Lyr Req: potatoes...inmate gets cops to dig up

Subject: potatoes...
From:
Date: 14 Sep 02 - 08:07 AM

HI, I'm looking for a comedy song which relates to letters between an inmate in prison and his wife. It involves the poice digging up his back garden and the final line is in the letter to his wife, "plant the potatoes now" Thanks Glen

Subject: RE: potatoes...
From: Tig
Date: 14 Sep 02 - 06:50 PM

I know the song...the name is on the tip of my tongue....Therapy recorded it....AARRGGGGHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Subject: RE: potatoes...
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 14 Sep 02 - 07:11 PM

Sounds like a song version of a Porridge episode where a convict gets the constabulary to dig up his garden for pkanting by dropping hints about the loot being buried in it somewhere.

Though the Porridge plot might have come from the song rather than the other way.

Subject: RE: LYR REQ: potatoes...inmate gets cops to dig up
From: InOBU
Date: 14 Sep 02 - 09:48 PM

Bredan Behan claimed he actualy got the B Specials to turn over his gardin that way.,... Larry

Subject: RE: LYR REQ: potatoes...inmate gets cops to dig up
From: Mudjack
Date: 14 Sep 02 - 10:38 PM

I recall "Utah" Phillips telling a simular story about when he lived outside Spokane and the FBI was bugging his phone because of his political activities in the sixties.Armed with that valuable piece of information, he told his wife on the phone, whatever you do, DON'T dig up the potato field till I get home. And when he arrived home from his concert touring, he was most satisfied as to how well the feds can dig something up when they put their minds to it. Now he could plant his crops in a freshly turnd field.
I don't recall if that was ever recorded.
Mudjack

Subject: RE: LYR REQ: potatoes...inmate gets cops to dig up
From: Barry Finn
Date: 15 Sep 02 - 12:03 AM

I heard the same story InOBU. Though I heard he was at a pub & didn't want keep his promise to his wife about the garden until she phoned him. I took it as part urban ledgend, though. So maybe it's a well known radical trick, or they've all been having a good laugh for themselves. Barry

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: potatoes...inmate gets cops to dig up
From: InOBU
Date: 15 Sep 02 - 04:16 PM

Whole story, from a book about him, or maybe by him, is Bredan, as a teen, is sitting reading the paper, Steven, his da, tells him to turn over the garding, he tell's him, it will be done da, then goes back to the paper, later his father finds he hasn't moved and asks him again, he sais it will be done... suddunly the door bursts in and a bunch of B specials thunder through the house with shovels, dig the garding down about six feet and sheepishly appoligise, saying an anonomous call said there were guns burried in the Behan back gardin. Cheers Larry

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: potatoes...inmate gets cops to dig up
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 15 Sep 02 - 04:28 PM

Good folklore. But I'd be inclined to doubt the Brendan Behan version. I can't see him risking it - the only way he'd be sure there weren't a few guns buried out there would have been to dig it up himself. There's strange stuff tucked away in a lot of gardens and lofts in Ireland, unbeknownst to the occupants as like as not. (And what would the B-specials have been doing in Dublin anyway? Thogh maybe that's a quibble.)

I seem to remember a version of this where it's a wise man gets the same result by dropping a hint about there being a treasure buried in the garden. I think this one gioes back a long way. Which doesn't mean it mightn't have happened in practice a few times.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: potatoes...inmate gets cops to dig up
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 15 Sep 02 - 04:28 PM

Never encountered a song, but Myron Cohen was telling the story back in the 50s.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: potatoes...inmate gets cops to dig up
From: Leadfingers
Date: 15 Sep 02 - 08:45 PM

I know the story,but not a song.If there is a song,post it and I will steal it.If it Aint Bin Wrote,then some smart arse had better write it,preferably now.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: potatoes...inmate gets cops to dig up
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 17 Sep 02 - 12:37 PM

I went looking for lyrics, and didn't find them, but I found lots of examples of this story being told as a joke:

Begorrah! It's Saint Patrick's Day Jokes!
MAKE ME LAUGH!
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