Lyr Add: Goodnight Irene (parodies)

Subject: Goodnight Irene - Adult Version
From: Chet W.
Date: 15 Jun 99 - 06:04 PM

Per request after my offer in another thread, here are my own lyrics for Goodnight Irene, which I used for a long time as my standard end-of-show song.

>Irene grew up in the country
>Her daddy raised chickens and ducks
>I called her up last Friday night
>To see if she wanted to talk

>CHORUS Irene Goodnight, Irene Goodnight
>Goodnight Irene, Goodnight Irene
>I'll see you in my dreams

>Irene she drives a Plymouth
>Sometimes she drives a truck
>Irene was only twelve years old
>When she first started to drive

>CHORUS<

>Irene wins money at gambling
>She's always had plenty of luck
>One night out back of the barroom
>A cowboy showed Irene his horse

>CHORUS<

Lyrics c. Chet Williamson, but feel free to use them. Send money if you have a big hit record. If these lines do not break where they should, please somebody tell me how to do that.

I've had very few objections to this song. Any impropriety is the hearer's responsibility.

Enjoy, Chet W. ^^

Subject: RE: Goodnight Irene - Adult Version
From: Tom on Comfort
Date: 16 Jun 99 - 02:15 AM

How many words can you get to rhyme with truck or luck? (Nyuk, Nyuk, Nyuk)

Subject: RE: Goodnight Irene - Adult Version
From: Barbara
Date: 16 Jun 99 - 03:55 AM

As well as the verses found here (Good night Irene parody) There's one about her swallowing her wristwatch made of silver and glass; Now if you want to know the time, you have to look at the town clock.
Seems like there were others, too, besides the ones in the Database.
And Tom, there are enough words that rhyme with 'duck' to try everyone's patience: buck, pluck, muck, suck, cluck, huck, puck, stuck, struck, yuck, tuck, schmuck... before you even get to the double syllable ones...
Blessings,
Barbara

Subject: RE: Goodnight Irene - Adult Version
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 16 Jun 99 - 03:55 AM

Adult? Adult? Leadbelly sang "I'll get you in my dreams"! Are you confusing the song with "I'll see you in my dreams", which is a different song altogether?

Steve (over 21)

Subject: RE: Goodnight Irene - Adult Version
From: Butthead
Date: 22 Jun 99 - 04:02 AM

What the flamin' heck's goin' on here?

Subject: RE: Goodnight Irene - Adult Version
From: Night Owl
Date: 22 Jun 99 - 02:29 PM

I, for one, think the question should be deferred to Catspaw for an answer!!!

Subject: RE: Goodnight Irene - Adult Version
From: Matthew B.
Date: 22 Jun 99 - 02:38 PM

Maybe I should tell you abut the Cruels Sisters' necrophiliac version.

Sometimes I really love Irene
But other times I hate her
And if Irene won't be my bride
I'll have to decapitate her

Irene she died the other night
I had her body entombed
But when I got to craving sex
She had to be exhumed

Some folks they all call me deranged
But I've just gotta have her
How can anything be strange
In loving a cadaver?

And here's my verse:

Irene and I are doing fine
We're even thinking of marryin'
I'll have Irene right by my side
Until she turns to carrion

Subject: RE: Goodnight Irene - Adult Version
From: Pete Peterson
Date: 23 Jun 99 - 11:26 AM

Dear mr. Parkes, et. al., According to oscar Brand (who explained it carefully on his radio show) what Leadbelly sang was "I'll guess you in my dreams" and when he was asked to explain said it meant something like "I'll guess (what) you (are doing) in my dreams." I heard "get" also when i first heard those recordings.

Subject: RE: Goodnight Irene - Adult Version
From: Matthew B.
Date: 23 Jun 99 - 11:58 AM

Now that was worth saying twice

:o)

Subject: RE: Goodnight Irene - Adult Version
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 23 Jun 99 - 12:14 PM

Pete, why did you address that post to my dad?

Mrs Parkes's lad

Subject: RE: Goodnight Irene - Adult Version
From: GUEST,slopingcompanion
Date: 13 Nov 05 - 08:59 AM

with the "If Irene turns her back on me I'll take morphine and die" line, I had a strange friend who told me in relation to the NYC and Kansas City songs that he is saying "...feelin' 'bout to lower my line" ....inrelation to collapsing a vein while shooting up heroine.
Is she nuts as I suspect?
Talk about adult Lead Belly

Subject: RE: Goodnight Irene - Adult Version
From: GUEST,BOAB
Date: 14 Nov 05 - 01:41 AM

The "ADULT" version????!!

Subject: RE: Goodnight Irene - Adult Version
From: GUEST,Art Thieme
Date: 14 Nov 05 - 11:22 AM

Irene was always a very adult song to me---being about possible murder suicide (morphine, drowning) if she doesn't return his love for her. --- That said, I've always figured I would possibly want it sung at my funeral! ;-)

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: Goodnight Irene - Adult Version
From: Mark Ross
Date: 14 Nov 05 - 02:33 PM

"Sometimes Irene wears pajamas,
Sometimes an old nightgown,
Then there's the nights she wears nothing at all,
And then she's the talk of the town."

Mark Ross

Subject: RE: Goodnight Irene - Adult Version
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 14 Nov 05 - 08:22 PM

A good many years ago the (Aussie) ABC Radio had a late night music show that ran for years in which the presenter played a different version by a different artist of this song to end every show.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Goodnight Irene (parodies)
From: GUEST,Comedy Lover
Date: 21 Nov 15 - 04:43 PM

I remember a comedy album as a kid with a well endowed, half undressed woman on the cover. There was a banner across her chest that said "CENSORED" and it covered all the best bits, of course. But on the album there was a parody of Goodnight Irene:

Oh, Irene I wish you were a little fish
I wish you were a bass
Then you could climb on the rocks and reefs
And slide down on your... hands and knees

Does anyone else remember that? I'd really like to find that album.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Goodnight Irene (parodies)
From: JennieG
Date: 21 Nov 15 - 06:26 PM

A friend and I sing the 'morphine' line, but we change the word to 'mortein'.....which, in Oz, is an insect spray.

Ozzies get it, but the rest of the world looks puzzled when we sing it.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Goodnight Irene (parodies)
From: GUEST,Lanfranc sans cookie
Date: 21 Nov 15 - 06:51 PM

I learned the song from Alex Campbell who always sang "get" live but the only record of it by him that I have has "see".

In adult company I always sing "get" in memory of Alex.

Alan

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Goodnight Irene (parodies)
From: EBarnacle
Date: 22 Nov 15 - 10:47 AM

I would be inclined to believe Pete Seeger is authoritative on this. He generally sang "get" in the final chorus.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Goodnight Irene (parodies)
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Sep 16 - 03:23 PM

I remember this parody well - I thought it was Brother Dave Gardner, but I can find nothing to back that up. I must remember this wrong. Did you ever find the name?

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Goodnight Irene (parodies)
From: GUEST,DK
Date: 26 Sep 16 - 01:00 AM

Not a parody, but I think it was Alan Lomax who collected the words in Irish, I would to find them if possible.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Goodnight Irene (parodies)
From: vectis
Date: 26 Sep 16 - 04:28 AM

Stop your rambling, stop your gambling
Stop staying in folk clubs all night
Go home to your wives and your families
And sit by your tellies (TVs) bright

Laurie Say's last verse.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Goodnight Irene (parodies)
From: JHW
Date: 26 Sep 16 - 05:35 AM

Mick Shehan used to sing a song about his days tediously making bolts on some sort of lathe
'Machine Goodnight, machine goodnight, goodnight machine, goodnight machine I'll see you in my dreams'