My Country Isn't Thee...?

Subject: My Country Isn't Thee...?
From: GUEST,Whatsittoya
Date: 18 Jun 02 - 03:28 AM

When I was a little kid still in grade school, we used to sing this irreverent song set to "My Country 'Tis of Thee":

"My country isn't the sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing,
My country hates me, I'm going to Germany to see the queen.

Her name is Donald Duck, she drives a garbage truck,
From ev-er-y mountainside, let her dump the trash!"

Is anyone else familiar with it? Does anyone know where it originated? Some book perhaps? Some person?

I didn't mean any disrespect, I was just wondering :).

Subject: RE: My Country Isn't Thee...?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 18 Jun 02 - 03:51 AM

Haven't heard that one, but I love songs like this. I think you'd enjoy a trip to our Naughty Kids' Greatest Hits thread (click here).
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: My Country Isn't Thee...?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 18 Jun 02 - 06:14 AM

There's a version of this in A Prairie Home Companion Folk Song Book which gets a mention in that thread - it's full of stuff like that. (I'm sure Joe's got a copy - if not rush out and get one.)

My country's tired of me
I come from Germany
My name is Fritz.
I love my sauerkraut
It makes my ears stick out
From every mountain top
Let sauerkraut sprout.

My country's tired of me,
I went to Germany
To see the King
His name was Donald Duck
He drove a garbage truck
Here's wishing the best of luck
In Donald's reign.

Subject: RE: My Country Isn't Thee...?
From: keberoxu
Date: 18 Feb 18 - 04:50 PM

Donald's Reign?
in which country?

Subject: RE: My Country Isn't Thee...?
From: GUEST,Gerry
Date: 18 Feb 18 - 06:25 PM

We sang a version of that, New York City, circa 1960:

My country, 'tis of thee,
Sweet land of Germany.
My name is Fritz.
I am a German spy
Caught by the FBI.
Tomorrow I will die.
Oh, fiddlesticks!

Subject: RE: My Country Isn't Thee...?
From: GUEST
Date: 12 Mar 20 - 08:58 AM

We sang two versions of this song when I was a kid, with elements of the above but slightly different. I always thought maybe the song originated with soldiers during WWI or WWII:

My country tis of thee
Sweet land of Germany
My name is Fritz
I love their sour kraut
It makes my ears sprout out
From every mountain top
Let sour kraut sprout

and:

My country tis of thee
Sweet land of Germany
My name is Fritz
The King is Donald Duck
He drives a garbage truck
His wife is Daffy Duck
She drives one too

Subject: RE: My Country Isn't Thee...?
From: GUEST,Guest
Date: 22 Jun 22 - 08:44 PM

My country tis of thee, I'm getting sick of thee
I'll go to Germany and see the king.
His name is Donald Duck. He drives a garbage truck...

Forgot the rest. Remembered from Virginia or possibly Nebraska in the fifties along with:

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the burning of the schools,
Persecution of the teachers and the breaking of the rules.
We are marching to the principal to tell him he's a fool.
Forgot the final line.

Glory, glory hallelujah,
Teacher hit me with a ruler
So I bopped her on the bean with a rotten tangerine
And the juice came pouring down.

Subject: RE: My Country Isn't Thee...?
From: GUEST,keberoxu
Date: 22 Jun 22 - 08:47 PM

Guest, I believe the final line you forgot is

"Our school is burn-ing doooooown . . ."

Subject: RE: My Country Isn't Thee...?
From: GUEST,mlmeyer2
Date: 12 Aug 23 - 12:44 PM

My german grandparents would take the grandkids out for a ride and we all sang the following version:

My country tis of thee, I come from Germany.
My name is Fritz.
Give me some sauerkraut - don't leave the wieners out.
And give me a glass of beer and I'll stay here.

Subject: RE: My Country Isn't Thee...?
From: Robert B. Waltz
Date: 12 Aug 23 - 01:20 PM

"Heil Dir in Siegerkranz" ("God Save the King/Queen"/"My Country 'Tis of Thee") is one of the Great Sources of Parody. (On my list, it's co-#17 in most-parodied. The top five: "Yankee Doodle," "Packington's Pound," "John Brown's Body," "Fortune My Foe (Aim Not Too High)," and "Auld Lang Syne.")

The Ballad Index lists the following to this tune, and this isn't even close to comprehensive:

O Deus Optime (cf. Chappell/Wooldridge-OldEnglishPopularMusic II, p. 195)

South Carolina, A Patriotic Ode (File: CAFS1298)

My Country (Greenway-AmericanFolksongsOfProtest, pp. 88-89)

God Save the King (The King He Had a Date) (Pankake/Pankake-PrairieHomeCompanionFolkSongBook, p. 115; see next item)

Poor Georgie ("Queen Mary, so they say, Had a dictating way"; this appears to be a version of "The King He Had a Date" customized to George V and his wife Mary of Teck) (Harbin-Parodology, #47, p. 18)

My Country's Tired of Me (Pankake/Pankake-PrairieHomeCompanionFolkSongBook, p. 159)

Can Opener, 'Tis of Thee (Pankake/Pankake-PrairieHomeCompanionFolkSongBook, p. 159)

Our Land Is Free (celebrating the end of transportation to Van Diemen's Land) (Robert Hughes, _The Fatal Shore_, p. 572)

God Save the Rights of Man (1798 Irish revolutionary song) (Lawrence-MusicForPatriotsPoliticiansAndPresidents, p. 128; mentioned in Thomas Pakenham, _The Year of Liberty_, p. 193)

God Save America (Lawrence-MusicForPatriotsPoliticiansAndPresidents, p. 78)

His Excellency George Washington ("From the Americ shore, The vast Atlantic o'er, Shout -- 'Washington!'") (Lawrence-MusicForPatriotsPoliticiansAndPresidents, p. 92)

(Washington songs) ("Americans rejoice, While songs employ each voice" and "Hail Godlike Washington! Fair Freedom's chosen son") (Lawrence-MusicForPatriotsPoliticiansAndPresidents, p. 96); Ode to be sung on the Arrival of the President of the United States ("Hail thou auspicious day! Far let America Thy praise resound") (Lawrence-MusicForPatriotsPoliticiansAndPresidents, p. 117)

Ode ("Now let rich Musick sound And all the Region round With Rapture fill") (Lawrence-MusicForPatriotsPoliticiansAndPresidents, p. 97)

Ode for the Fourth of July ("Come all ye sons of song, Pour the full sound along") (Lawrence-MusicForPatriotsPoliticiansAndPresidents, p. 128; Rabson-SongbookOfTheAmericanRevolution, pp. 74-75)

Closing Ode ("Patrons, with dignity, The basic industry") (by A. P. Knapp) (Albert P. Knapp, _Grange Songster_, 1915, p. 3)

So Say We ("So say we all of us, So say we all of us, So say we all") (Rodeheaver-SociabilitySongs, p. 125)