Lyr Req: Pogo's Songs

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Pogo's Songs
From: Mark Clark
Date: 03 Feb 02 - 06:38 PM

And the “original” source for Deck Us All turned out to be “Bark Us All Bow Wows of Folly.”

      - Mark

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Pogo's Songs
From: Charley Noble
Date: 03 Feb 02 - 05:50 PM

I also have vague memories of what happened to Ol' Free Speech, that surly hound created by Mr. Kelly that kept all them varmints at bay by barking all night. Seems like his owners got tired of losing shut-eye, did Ol'Free Speech in, and then were surprised to find themselves overrun and et by varmints. A lesson for today?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Pogo's Songs
From: RangerSteve
Date: 03 Feb 02 - 05:39 PM

Fearless Fred, the footpad dread, set fire to his mammies bed.

Was there more to this poem?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Pogo's Songs
From: Charley Noble
Date: 03 Feb 02 - 01:30 PM

And "When you starve with a Tiger, the Tiger starves last."

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Pogo's Songs
From: Naemanson
Date: 03 Feb 02 - 11:28 AM

I have a copy of the POGO album. It includes some great stuff but it's been a while since I dug it out.

Remember Churchy and his "Friday The Thirteenth comes on a Wednesday this month!" I still do that every time I turn the calendar page.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Pogo's Songs
From: KAS
Date: 03 Feb 02 - 02:29 AM

He really did know this stuff. Except for a few skinnily repackaged early strip collections, Kelly's books are pretty much all out of print (why?! rowrbazzle!), but if you're lucky enough to find any of them used, there are lots of hidden gems -- references to all kinds of songs, snatches sung by characters, and pages devoted to original Carrollian verse.

Kelly collected a bunch (set to music by Norman Monath) in a hardback book called Songs of the Pogo (Simon & Schuster, 1956). It does not include Good King Sauerkraut, but it ends with the first verse of Boston Charlie. The arrangements are simple, for piano and voice. Folk songs and traditional singing get much play in the introductions, and there's plenty of lore attached to each. From the jacket copy:

"This book contains words and music of 30 songs, suitable for as many occasions -- birthdays, clandestine trysts, medical checkups, elevator rides, evenings at the public library, police raids, music-to-pay-last-year's bills by.... It is the intent of this book to make people leave the TV sets of bars and grills to gather, singing once again, about the old family upright, and then soberly to return to the bars and grills and think things over."

There was a record album made of Songs of the Pogo as well, but it's even harder to find than the book. Anyone?

I'm not sure if this is still available, but in 1992, Kelly's widow Selby Daley Kelly published Pogo Files for Pogophiles: A Retrospective on 50 years of Walt Kelly's Classic Comic Strip (Spring Hollow Books, Richfield, MN, ISBN 0-945185-03-0). It includes a chapter called The Swampy Bard: Songs and Poetry, a brief section on the Christmas carol parodies, including a historical overview of Deck Us All With Boston Charlie with several verses, and Kelly's original carol Bright Christmas Land. I think if there were any more of Good King Sauerkraut, we'd see it here, but yeah, it does seem to exist only for the joke. In one strip, Churchy LaFemme (on his way to carol rehearsal) starts to sing it, but doesn't make it past the first line before he's asked to try that other one:

Under Thursday of Crispness,
MacTruloff sanity
Three wench friends
Tudors above
An' the parson up a psaltree.


Ken

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Pogo's Songs
From: musicmick
Date: 02 Feb 02 - 10:21 PM

I thought that Kelly's best folksong allusion was in the episodes featuring Pogo, Owl and Churchy as three traveling musicians. Albert was pretending to be a donkey named Maxwelton. He wanted to join the band as a singer because, as he explained, " Maxwelton's brays are bonny! " It was the funniest line I've ever read in a newspaper strip.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Pogo's Songs
From: Midchuck
Date: 02 Feb 02 - 09:12 PM

Do you remember the line "GOOD, THOUGH!"...about 20 years before Utah made it famous?

Peter.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Pogo's Songs
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 02 Feb 02 - 08:55 PM

Ah, yes! And don't forget Bun' rabbit celebrating every holiday... I especially remember St. Swithin's day.. looked it up, and there is a religious Holiday for St. Swithin. Don't tell our flaming Guest. He'll ask if he is supposed to care. Of course, you are, Stoopid. And what about the Blue Muslins? Don't get me started..
Jerry

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Pogo's Songs
From: Bill D
Date: 02 Feb 02 - 08:52 PM

we have had a number of posts about our dear, lamented possum and his buddies...and I have scanned and posted a couple of classic pages (like the one where they get to crying over 'Barbry Allan')..Walt KNEW that stuff!....

and yes, that's all there was to the Good King Sauerkraut bit..one verse and a little routine

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Pogo's Songs
From: musicmick
Date: 02 Feb 02 - 08:37 PM

In fact, the song continues, "As the snoo lay 'round about/ All kerchoo achievin'" When Albert is asked, "What's snoo?" he replies, "Not much. What's snoo with you?" I owned every Pogo book and I read the column every day. Walt Kelly was to cartoon humor what Bela Fleck is to 5 string banjo. I miss them all, Howland P. Owl, Miss Mamzelle Hepzibah, Churchy La Femme and those three brothers, Bewitched, Bothered and Bemildred. Mike Miller

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Pogo's Songs
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 02 Feb 02 - 02:54 PM

Norah's Freezing on the trolley...
Jerry

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Pogo's Songs
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 02 Feb 02 - 02:38 PM

That's not "Deck the Hall with Boston Charlie"; it's "Deck us all with Boston Charlie". Don't mess with the classics, please.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Pogo's Songs
From: MMario
Date: 02 Feb 02 - 10:25 AM

I found this:

Good King Sauerkraut Looked Out
on His Feets Uneven
While His Nose Jus' run About,
A-Sniffin' and A-Sneezin'

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Pogo's Songs
From: GUEST,PaulM
Date: 02 Feb 02 - 10:16 AM

There only appear to be a few lines. See this thread from rec.music.folk

Paul

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Pogo's Songs
From: Charley Noble
Date: 02 Feb 02 - 10:10 AM

You mean the king who "looked out on his feet uneven"?

Subject: Pogo's Songs
From: GUEST,Tom Brady
Date: 02 Feb 02 - 09:35 AM

The late, great Walt Kelly wrote a number of song parodies for his comic strip "Pogo". I'm looking for the lyrics to "Good King Sauerkraut"; a parody of the Christmas carol"Good King Wenceslaus". I've found a number of his other songs, like "Deck the Hall With Boston Charlie", but can't find this one.