Origins: Drilling for Oil / Boring for Oil

Subject: Lyr Req: help-need title of a raunchy blues song
From: GUEST,Asheville1120
Date: 12 Sep 05 - 12:30 PM

I am trying to find a song I heard on a North Carolina public radio station, on Sat Sept 3, around 11pm. I believe it was part of a radio show, which featured risque blues songs, but I'm not sure. This was a song sung by a woman, and used 'drilling for oil' as a metaphor for having sex. Does anyone know what this song is? I need to find a copy of it.

Thanks!
Asheville 1120

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: help-need title of a raunchy blues song
From: Janie
Date: 12 Sep 05 - 12:48 PM

Could it have been the show "Back Porch Music"? You can go to WUNC.org, click on Back Porch Music and from their archives download a playlist from any particular date.

Janie

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: help-need title of a raunchy blues so
From: GUEST,Asheville1120
Date: 12 Sep 05 - 12:58 PM

I checked the WUNC website and I don't see it. I'm thinking that this song may be a little too 'blue' for Back Porch music. Some other lyrics I'm remembering:
"if the well runs dry then you grab a stick and I'll grab a pole and we'll find another hole..." Can't believe I'm writing this... :)

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: help-need title of a raunchy blues song
From: Janie
Date: 12 Sep 05 - 02:07 PM

There is also Blues Central out of Charlotte--I'm wondering about Memphis Minnie on the 9/3 playlist.

Janie

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: help-need title of a raunchy blues so
From: GUEST
Date: 12 Sep 05 - 02:49 PM

I checked with Back Porch music and he said it wasn't played by them... how could a song be so difficult to find?

Thanks for everyone's help. It is much appreciated!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: help-need title of a raunchy blues song
From: Le Scaramouche
Date: 12 Sep 05 - 04:45 PM

Have you tried googling the lyrics you remember?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: help-need title of a raunchy blues song
From: Tinker
Date: 13 Sep 05 - 07:14 AM

I haven't heard that one and my first search doesn't bring it up.

This link may give a few ideas...

Hokum had many private label releases and it could be hard to find. The radio station is your best bet.

Tinker

Subject: Lyr Add: DRILLING FOR OIL
From: GUEST,Bob Coltman
Date: 13 Sep 05 - 11:56 AM

It's a reasonably common bawdy song known as "Drilling For Oil" that may have stemmed from an older one called "Digging for Gold."

Check Llewtrah's website, he has "Oil" under the title "Boring For Oil" and one of "Gold."

Here's my text, goes to tune, more or less, of "Sweet Betsy." My tune's a little closer to the Irish original and has a different sound.

Bob

DRILLING FOR OIL

It's not an uncommon but an unpleasant thing
To be asked for a song and have nothing to sing,
This world's always looking for something that's new,
But I'll sing you an old one if an old one will do.

I went to Oil City, it's a place of renown,
To view the oil wells and look all around,
I had a notion of prospecting the soil,
In search of someplace to go drilling for oil.

So I was out searching for oil wells one day,
When I met a young lady and to her did say,
I'm seeking my fortune and willing to toil,
If you'll show me someplace to go drilling for oil.

I know of one place, sir, she said with a smile,
Which I've guarded and protected since I was a child,
My mama told me this place not to despoil,
And if you drill there you are bound to strike oil.

She lifted her skirts up for fear they might soil,
And showed me the spot to go drilling for oil,
My heart it did tremble, my blood it did boil,
I pulled out my auger to go drilling for oil.

I hadn't bored more than six inches or so,
The maiden cried out, have a care, please go slow,
My character you've ruined, my clothes you did soil,
I'm awful afeared you're about to strike oil!

But on I bored deeper, I could not go slow,
The oil from my auger so swiftly did flow,
She screamed and she hollered and tried to recoil,
You've busted my bedrock in your drilling for oil!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: help-need title of a raunchy blues so
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 13 Sep 05 - 09:26 PM

There's another version in DigiTrad: BORING FOR OIL.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: help-need title of a raunchy blues song
From: Dani
Date: 13 Sep 05 - 10:00 PM

WELL, if Tinker and Greenhaus can't find it, you're....

out of luck.

You can also try WXYC (www.wxyc.org): they're good about playlists and helping people find songs, and are always playing some of the strangest things at the strangest times.

Dani

Subject: RE: req title of a raunchy blues song-drilling for oil
From: GUEST,Joe_F
Date: 14 Sep 05 - 03:31 PM

In Texas, some of the men do it;

Others drill a hole & then do it.

Let's do it -- let's fall in love....

--- Joe Fineman    [e-mail]

||: Faith is belief for which evidence is not needed, because it is backed up with the threat of a beating. :||

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Drilling for Oil / Boring for Oil
From: Jack Horntip
Date: 14 Jan 25 - 08:53 AM

Boring for Oil.

You may talk of excitement so scarce and so rare,
Of bansh[?] and of water-falls done up in hair,
But if you will just listen to me for awhile
I'll relate my adventure while boring for oil.

I went to Oil city, that place of renown,
I viewed the fine country, prospecting the town,
Prospecting the ground, and prospecting the soil, .
[In] search of a spot to go boring for oil.

One evening while tie rambling I met a fair maid,
And unto this damsel I gently did say
'Tis all for a fortune I'm willing to toil,
If I knew of a spot to go boring for oil.

She smiled as she said, well now I declare;
I know of a spot and have watched it with care,
And no one has seen it since I was a child,
And if you will bore there you will surely strike oil.

Says I to myself, my fortune is made;
If you show the spot I'll see you well paid,
Then she lifted her garments for fear they would soil,
And showed me the spot to go boring for oil.

[I ki]ssed this fai[r maid] one hundred times ore,
[.......] bat her [.......]ed on natures green floor;
[.....]was with [.........]t, my blood it did boil,
Then I pulled out my AUGER, to go boring for oil.

I not bor[ed but] six inches or so,
And the oil free[ly and w]ell it freely did flow,
She smiled and she stammered, my character spoiled,
And you have lifted[?] my kidneys, while boring for oil.

1883-1897. Broadside from Bawdy Ledger Book With Broadsides.

This scanned ledger/scrapbook -- with two-thirds song related --
with approximately 35 bawdy broadsides. The it consists of doggerel
poems, bawdy jokes & stories. Using internal dates, the collection
dates from ~1883-97. Reportedly the ledger book was found in the
attic of an 1880's house during renovations in a town in upstate NY
near the Erie Canal.


See online: https://archive.org/details/1883-1897-bawdy-ledger-book-with-broadsides/page/n27/mode/1up

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Drilling for Oil / Boring for Oil
From: Richard Mellish
Date: 14 Jan 25 - 11:03 AM

Bert Lloyd had a version of this, set on the shore of the North Sea and involving a mermaid. I wasn't aware of these American versions till now. Bert presumably based his on one of them.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Drilling for Oil / Boring for Oil
From: Jack Horntip
Date: 14 Jan 25 - 07:03 PM

BORING FOR OIL

As I walked out one morning in May
I met a fair damsel and to her did say
It's all for a fortune I am willing to toil
If you'll show me some place to go boring for oil.

She stammered, she stammered, kind sir, I declare,
I know of a place and I've nursed it with care,
And no one has seen it since I was a child
And I'll show you there's no trouble in boring for oil.

Oh, I had not bored down more than six inches or so,
When the oil from my well it so freely did flow,
She screamed and she hollered Oh my character's spoiled
You've busted my hamgut while boring for oil. [?]

R. M. Davids

c1924. The Gordon Inferno Collection. Davids MSS.
Written down by R.M. Davids, Cross X Ranch, Woodmere, Florida,
Sent in to R.W. Gordon by J.C. Colcord 12/21/29.


See online: https://archive.org/details/1917gordoninfernocollection/page/n19/mode/1up?q=oil

Subject: RE: Origins: Drilling for Oil / Boring for Oil
From: Richard Mellish
Date: 16 Jan 25 - 04:12 AM

As sung by Bert Lloyd at Dingle's Folk Club 4-4-1973.

Down by the North Sea shore, a while before now,
While seekin' me fortune and ramblin' around,
I spied a young mermaid, very pretty as I recall,
And I asked this sweet creature where I might find oil.

"Oh I know a little oil well not very far from here,
And I've been watchin' over it with the tenderest care,
And no-one's been near it since I was a child,
And I think you'd find profit to bore there a while."

So I set up me rig and I made a fine stand,
And this sweet little creature gave me a helping hand,
Saying "Daddy, oh Daddy, it makes me blood boil,
When you set up your auger to go boring for oil."

Oh I kissed this little creature ten thousand times o'er,
As we toiled there together all on the sea shore,
With a pillow under her fish-tail, for fear it should soil,
I spat on me auger and went borin for oil.

Hadn't been borin' three minutes or four.
At a few inches depth, boys, the gusher did pour,
And she wriggled and giggled and looked up and smiled,
Said "Bear down on that auger, for I think you've struck oil."

It's about a few days after, a thought come in me head,
For the end of that auger was rusty and red,
And I took it to the doctor, and he says with a smile,
"I think you struck shale there while boring for oil."

Subject: RE: Origins: Drilling for Oil / Boring for Oil
From: Jack Horntip
Date: 22 Jan 25 - 09:56 PM

Brown wax home recording of accordion music and two men singing
"Boring for Oil". I can't make out the words. The notes:

Announcement at beginning: "Accordion solo, let 'er go."
Brown wax cylinder.
Place of recording likely the United States.
Accordion solo. Then male vocal solo that becomes a duet,
"Boring For Oil," a ribald song; the lyrics heard here differ
from those in published versions. Then another accordion solo.
Language: Sung in English.
Collection: The David Giovannoni Collection of home cylinder
recordings (Set Number: 304-04, Originally acquired: The Musical
Wonder House Collection, 2011).

Listen here: http://www.library.ucsb.edu/OBJID/Cylinder13201

Subject: RE: Origins: Drilling for Oil / Boring for Oil
From: Jack Horntip
Date: 23 Jan 25 - 11:06 AM

Boring For Oil

You talk of excitement so racy and rare
Of underground currents that wind up in air
Of underground currents prospecting the soil
In search of a place to go boring for oil

On one of these rambles, I met a fair dame
So and slightly to her I did say,
"'Tis a large fortune for I willing to go toil
"Could you show me a place to go boring for oil?

She stuttered and stammered, "Young man I declare
"I know of a place and I've watched it with care
"And no man has seen it since I've been a child
"And if you bore there, you'll surely strike oil"

Oh I took this fair dame so out for a stroll
And I bade her sit down on Erin's green knoll
She hoisted her garments for fear they'd get soiled
And I took out my auger and went boring for oil.

I hadn't bored more than six inches or so
When the oil pump and...

August 24, 1938. Emerald Gallagher. Saint James, Beaver Island, MI.



Listen here: https://www.loc.gov/item/afc1939007_afs02267a/?

Subject: RE: Origins: Drilling for Oil / Boring for Oil
From: Jack Horntip
Date: 23 Jan 25 - 11:14 AM

Drill Daddy, Drill


Drill, drill, drill, daddy
Drill, drill, drill, daddy
He keeps drillin' 'til the oil has flown away
My daddy is an oil man, he drills night and day
My daddy is an oil man, he drills night and day
He keeps drillin' 'til the oil has flown away

Well, pack your stuff in your automobile
Set up your drill in the middle of my field
And drill, drill, drill, daddy
Drill, drill, drill, daddy
He keeps drillin' 'til the oil has flown away

We'll drill in the sun, drill in the rain
If your drill gets rusty, grease it up again
And drill, drill, drill, daddy
Drill, drill, drill, daddy
He keeps drillin' 'til the oil has flown away

We'll drill down low, drill up high
Keep drillin', daddy, 'til the well runs dry
And drill, drill, drill, daddy
Drill, drill, drill, daddy
He keeps drillin' 'til the oil has flown away

[Instrumental Break]

Now you'll find oil on my land
If you hold your drill firmly in your hand
And drill, drill, drill, daddy
Drill, drill, drill, daddy
He keeps drillin' 'til the oil has flown away

Keep on drillin' and don't you stop
Bring my oil from the bottom to the top
And drill, drill, drill, daddy
Drill, drill, drill, daddy
He keeps drillin' 'til the oil has flown away

Well you get a stick, I'll get a pole
When one well goes dry, we'll use another hole
And drill, drill, drill, daddy
Drill, drill, drill, daddy
He keeps drillin' 'til the oil has flown away

Drill, drill, drill, daddy
Drill, drill, drill, daddy
Drill, drill, drill, daddy
Drill, drill, drill, daddy

To answer the initial post, the song is "Drill Daddy Drill" sung by
Dorothy Ellis. Released as a single on Federal Records in April 1952.

Subject: RE: Origins: Drilling for Oil / Boring for Oil
From: Jack Horntip
Date: 23 Jan 25 - 02:04 PM

Boring For Oil

You may talk of excitement both racy and rare
Of spots and of waterfalls done up in air
All through the excitement, my blood it did boil
For I made my advances to boring for oil

One'd morning in a ramble, I met a fair maid
So handsome and lovely to her I did say,
"Oh for a large fortune I willing to toil
"If you showed me a place to go boring for oil."

This fair maid she stammered, "Young man I declare
"I know where that place's and I've watched it with care
"And no one has seen it since I was a child
"And if you will bore there, you'll surely strike oil"

Saying, says I, to myself, "Oh my fortune is made
"If she show me that place now, I'll see you well paid"
She hike'ed her garments to fear she might soil
And she showed me the place to go boring for oil.

Oh I kissed that fair damsel and hundred times o'er.
And I made her be seated on native green shore
She screamed and she hollered, "My character you've spoil."
When I pulled out old Satan, went boring for oil.

Oh I hadn't bored eight inches so
The oil from her oiler so gently did flow.
She screamed and she hollered, "Now my character you spoiled.
"You've busted my bladder a-boring for oil."

August 27, 1940. Transcribed from the singing of Lewis Winfield Moody, Plainfield, WI.


Download here: https://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/J7G5SVHXEPAC58U

Subject: RE: Origins: Drilling for Oil / Boring for Oil
From: Lighter
Date: 24 Jan 25 - 01:58 PM

This is what I hear on the Giovannoni cylinder. A few words may be off:

I met a fair damsel one night in fresh spring.
She told me of an oil well that’s not far away.
No one had touched it since she was a child,
What a beautiful place to go boring for oil.

I showed this fair damsel my tools of the trade.
Show me the oil, I’ll see you’re well paid.
She hoisted her garments for fear they might spoil
And she showed me the place to go boring for oil.

I hadn’t been boring but a minute or two,
For the oil from her oil well so freely did flow.
I got so excited my blood it did boil,
When I throwed her my augur when boring for oil.

Tune is "The Wagoner's Lad." The accordion leads me to think the recording was made in the '20s.

Subject: RE: Origins: Drilling for Oil / Boring for Oil
From: Lighter
Date: 23 Dec 25 - 06:12 PM

Of interest: an early text of "The Dreary Black Hills," given in The Summit County Beacon (June 6, 1877) says the song goes to the air of "Boring for Oil."

Subject: RE: Origins: Drilling for Oil / Boring for Oil
From: Jack Horntip
Date: 25 Dec 25 - 07:17 AM

Of the nine songs Mr. [Gordon] Howard sang for me in May, 1960,
six were more or less bawdy. They included the old and widely
known "Foggy Dew" and "The Old Man Came Home One Night" (Child 274),
along with four more recent pieces. Of most interest is "Boring for
Oil," a modern counterpart of the many older songs using trade
symbolism, which he sang to the tune of "Villikens and His Dinah":

I arrived in Calgary October the tenth
And a week in that city on pleasure I spent—
A week in that city prospecting the soil
In search of a spot to go boring for oil.

One bright sunny day as I strolled down the street
A pretty fair damsel I happened to meet.
Said I to this damsel: "Your family I'll foil
If you'll show me a spot to go boring for oil."

Oh, the damsel looked up and she says: "I declare
Oh, I know of a spot and I've watched it with care,
And no one has seen it since I was a child,
And if you go there I am sure you'll strike oil."

So I fondly embraced her on the very top floor.
I hugged and I kissed her a thousand times o'er,
And I lifted her garments for fear they might soil;
Then she showed me that spot to go boring for oil.

Well, I scarcely had bored in six inches or more
When the oil from her well so freely did pour,
And she looked up at me and she said with a smile:
"Come down on your auger—I'm sure you've struck oil."

Although comparatively modern, that follows a traditional folk-song
pattern, and was probably composed by an Irishman: the "child" and
"smile" rhymes indicate that oil was pronounced "ile." Mr. Howard said
he had heard it in Drumheller, Alberta, in 1919. Ellen Stekert
collected it in 1958 from a man in his eighties living in Steuben
County, New York, who thought he had learned it in the lumberwoods of
northern Pennsylvania. His seven stanzas included a first and a last
one that Mr. Howard did not sing, but the others were quite similar.
Frank Hoffman collected it from Hiram Cranmer, an ex-lumberjack from
north central Pennsylvania, who had learned it from other lumberjacks
before World War I. Both the other versions mention "Oil City" in
place of Calgary as the locale.

1966. "A Sampling of Bawdy Ballads from Ontario" by Edith Fowke in
Bruce Jackson (ed.), Folklore and Society: Essays in Honor of
Benjamin A. Botkin, (Hatboro, Pennsylvania: Folklore Associates).

Subject: RE: Origins: Drilling for Oil / Boring for Oil
From: Jack Horntip
Date: 25 Dec 25 - 07:28 AM

Ballad Index entry: https://balladindex.org/Ballads/RL058.html

This entry omits a reference to Edith Fowke's article.

---

Boring for Oil

DESCRIPTION: The singer goes boring for oil with his "auger," and in some versions contracts a venereal disease.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1940 (Peters-FolkSongsOutOfWisconsin)
KEYWORDS: bawdy sex disease warning
FOUND IN: Canada(West) US(MA,MW,NE,So,SW)
REFERENCES (4 citations):
Randolph/Legman-RollMeInYourArms I, pp. 58-60, "Boring for Oil" (4 texts, 1 tune)
Logsdon-WhorehouseBellsWereRinging 26, pp. 160-162, "Boring for Oil" (1 text, 1 tune)
Peters-FolkSongsOutOfWisconsin, p. 263, "Boring for Oil" (1 text, 1 tune, possibly slightly expurgated)
DT, BOREOIL*
Roud #10094
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Fire Ship" (plot) and references there
NOTES [71 words]: Logsdon-WhorehouseBellsWereRinging says this "may be the oldest bawdy oil occupation song in tradition." There isn't much competition for that title. But Logsdon's version refers to "Oil City," which he believes to be in the Pennsylvania oil fields, which might date the song as early as the 1860s. And one of Randolph's variants apparently did date back to c. 1910. So while proof is lacking, Logsdon's claim is possible. - RBW
Last updated in version 2.6
File: RL058

---

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The Ballad Index Copyright 2025 by Robert B. Waltz and David G. Engle.

Subject: RE: Origins: Drilling for Oil / Boring for Oil
From: Jack Horntip
Date: 25 Dec 25 - 08:32 AM

Music of this Song for sale by Wm. A. Pond & Co., 547 Broadway, N.Y.

BORING FOR OIL.

You may talk of California, with its yellow golden shore,
The new streets of Nevada, with its mines of silver ore,
But the State of Pennsylvania the boasting now can spoil,
Great wealth is flowing from their mighty beds of oil.

CHORUS.--Work away, did away,
Drilling through the soil;
Where you go, both high and low,
They're talking of oil.

Now to this great discovery Farmer once gave birth,
He planted some potatoes pretty deep into the earth;
He took a basket out one day and took them home to boil,
When he went to take them out the pot was full of oil.

The tailor leaves his lap-board, the carpenter his plane,
The barber, blacksmith, and everyone has got oil upon the brain.
A wife unto her husband says when he goes out to toil,
What shall we have for dinner, love? he only answers Oil!

I fell across an oil barrel, my arm I then did sprain,
i went to a doctor to have it set again.
I found him digging at a well, I in a rage did boil,
Says he, Rub it with Petroleum, then take a dose of oil.

The over sits a courting, his thoughts he does divide,
One-half upon Petroleum, one-half upon his bride.
Suddenly seizer her by the waist, but she his wish to foil,
Says, Law, John, don't you know father has struck oil?

"Songs for the Week commencing Sept. 25th, 1865." in
Bryants' Songs and Programme for this Evening. New York: T.B.
Harrision & Co., Printers, 447 Broome Street. 1864.


See online here: https://www.google.com/books/edition/Songs_and_Programme_for_this_Evening/-C1NCTgRCqgC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22boring%20for%20oil%22%20song%20OR%20rhyme%20OR%20ballad&pg=PA685&printsec=frontcover


The first stanza is similar to the bawdy song and the last stanza hints at ribaldry.

Subject: RE: Origins: Drilling for Oil / Boring for Oil
From: Lighter
Date: 25 Dec 25 - 09:08 AM

I think that's a stretch, John. The scansion is different from the bawdy song (which means a different tune), and the "boring" metaphor was probably sufficient to inspire it.

The first commercial oil well anywhere was drilled in Pennsylvania in 1859.

Subject: RE: Origins: Drilling for Oil / Boring for Oil
From: Jack Horntip
Date: 25 Dec 25 - 09:13 AM

From the 1887-1897 broadside version:

You may talk of excitement so scarce and so rare,
Of bansh[?] and of water-falls done up in hair,
But if you will just listen to me for awhile
I'll relate my adventure while boring for oil.

The version above:

You may talk of California, with its yellow golden shore,
The new streets of Nevada, with its mines of silver ore,
But the State of Pennsylvania the boasting now can spoil,
Great wealth is flowing from their mighty beds of oil.

Opening is the same.

Subject: RE: Origins: Drilling for Oil / Boring for Oil
From: Jack Horntip
Date: 25 Dec 25 - 09:32 AM

Opening of the song "You may talk of..." which hints at connection.