Lyr Req: By Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggcha...

Subject: longest named lake
From:
Date: 20 Jul 00 - 04:59 PM

Hi,

I read a recent article about the longest named lake (beginning Lake Chargoggagogg etc.) in Mass. and they mentioned a song sung by Ethel Merman and Ray Bolger but did not give the title. Can anyone tell me what this song was called? Here's some of the lyrics:

``Oh, we took a walk one evening and we sat down on a log,

by Lake Char-gogg-a-gogg-man-chaugg-a-gogg-chau-bun-a-gun-ga-maugg.

There we told loves old sweet story and we listened to a frog,

in Lake Char-gogg-a-gogg-man-chaugg-a-gogg-chau-bun-a-gun-ga-maugg.' '

THANKS!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: longest named lake
From: dwditty
Date: 20 Jul 00 - 05:08 PM

Don't know the song, but I was told the translation means, "You fish on your side of the lake, I fish on my side of the lake, and nobody fish in the middle."

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: longest named lake
From: Jed at Work
Date: 20 Jul 00 - 06:28 PM

In Mass we simply called it Manchaug, for short (because it was "chargoggagoggmanchauggaoggchaubunagungmaug" or something like that) ... but sorry, can't help with the song.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: longest named lake
From: MMario
Date: 20 Jul 00 - 08:50 PM

heard of it, but that's all.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: longest named lake
From: Jacob B
Date: 21 Jul 00 - 03:15 PM

Refresh. It sounds like it's probably from some little-known Broadway musical. I'd like to know more about it.

Jacob

Subject: Lyr Add: LAKE SONG / BY LAKE CHARGOGGAGOGG...
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 28 Oct 02 - 10:38 PM

A history of the song is given in an article here. (Well, actually, I got it from the Google cache here.)

The Penn State University Library has the sheet music.

Lyrics copied from the Olde Webster Archives (click to hear a choir singing it).

THE LAKE SONG, also known as
BY LAKE CHARGOGGAGOGGMANCHAUGGAGOGGCHAUBUNAGUNGAMAUGG
Words and music by Will Heagney, Will Mahoney, and Bert Reed.
Published by Harry Von Tilzer Music Publishing Co. 1935

What a place to see, what a place to be when the summer is here
You can spend all your time at play, blues will soon disappear.
Every day will be one big holiday, you'll be living at ease,
From early morning till late at night, you can do as you please.

When you hear the rippling water, it will set your heart a gogg,
At Lake Char-gogg-agogg-manchaugg-a-gogg-cha-bun-a-gun-ga-maugg
And the rhythm of the bull frogs, with their love-lorn dialogue,
At Lake Char-gogg-agogg-manchaugg-a-gogg-cha-bun-a-gun-ga-maugg.

Oh, there is such a lot to do, you lose all track of time
Nobody knows it's Sunday till they hear the church bells chime.
You can find out where this place is, if you look up your geog,
It's Lake Char-gogg-agogg-manchaugg-agogg-cha-bun-a-gun-ga-maugg.
It's Lake Char-gogg-agogg-manchaugg-agogg-cha-bun-a-gun-ga-maugg.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: longest named lake
From: Joe Offer
Date: 28 Oct 02 - 10:51 PM

You're damn good, Jim Dixon, you really are.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: longest named lake
From: Little Hawk
Date: 28 Oct 02 - 11:02 PM

Hmmmm. Gosh. We've got one not too far from here called Lake Kawagashigamog, but that's just a short little name in comparison. "Ga-mog" must mean "lake" in Ojibwa.

- LH

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: longest named lake
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 02 Nov 02 - 01:03 PM

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.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: longest named lake
From: wysiwyg
Date: 02 Nov 02 - 01:31 PM

Hard not to imagine the folk process being set to work on that song. What a hoot the video is-- closeups of the men grimacing or grinning as they sing, very funny!

Beats this one:

Lake WEB-a webba web stir STER astir astir LAKE web stir Webster!

~Susan