food songs

Subject: food songs
From: Susan A-R
Date: 14 Mar 99 - 08:49 PM

[Many song titles in this thread have been converted to links by a Mudelf.]

Since two of the major joys in my life are food and music (well there are others, but we've already explored them quite thoroughly under a few other threads) I thought I'd ask for favorite mudcatter food songs. I know that there are a lot on the database, but I want to know which ones you all LIKE. Too bad it's difficult to sing and eat at the same time.

Susan

Subject: RE: food songs
From:
Date: 14 Mar 99 - 10:08 PM

TAKE ME OUT TO THE BALL GAME

Subject: RE: food songs
From: alison
Date: 14 Mar 99 - 11:14 PM

Hi,

Weird Al Yankovic..... Eat it... and Lasagne....

slainte

alison

Subject: RE: food songs
From: Roger in Baltimore
Date: 14 Mar 99 - 11:35 PM

If you punch in @food in the DT, you get 135 listings including my favorite food song, "Home Grown Tomatoes" written by Guy Clark.

Some others that come to mind are "THE CHICKEN CORDON BLEUS" by Steve Goodman and a song by Chuck Brodsky called aptly enough "The Food Song."

An old blues song is "Biscuits" which is a double entendre, possibly not about food at all. It probably is no surprise to you Susan that sex and food get mixed up in our minds. We are definitely wired that way.

Roger in Baltimore

Subject: RE: food songs
From: Night Owl
Date: 15 Mar 99 - 01:59 AM

"THE WATERMELON SONG" and Staines recording of "SWEET POTATOES".

Subject: RE: food songs
From: Allan Samuels
Date: 15 Mar 99 - 02:00 AM

First from the PozoSeco Singers the "DIET SONG"

Then I once heard a wonderfull song that told the receipe for beet borscht in rhythm, rhyme, and melody. It was on NPR and that's all I remember.....that and laughing so hard I nearly drove off the road.

Allan

Subject: RE: food songs
From: j0_77
Date: 15 Mar 99 - 02:28 AM

CARVE DAT POSSUM (Uncle Dave Macon)

Subject: RE: food songs
From: catspaw49
Date: 15 Mar 99 - 02:44 AM

Uh, that's like an interesting thought there Roger. I mean I have rarely if ever confused sex with a Hostess Ho-Ho...but sure, it could happen.

Perhaps if I were married to a woman that worked in a butcher shop, we might refer to it as carnal knowledge. I do remember one time I was on a diet and suddenly leaped out of bed and acreamed, "Christ, I gotta' have a bowl of cottage cheese!" When I returned, the girl was gone. Always figured that was her loss though, since I brought back two bowls. And then there was the confusion that one evening about the salmon mousse, but we got that cleared up and had a high old time. Women don't like to be compared to food in any way, even things that I consider complimentary. So I learned to stick to the tried and true metaphors, like, "Your eyes shine the pants on a blue serge suit."

But I'll keep on reading this thread in the hopes that I'll get some new ideas to use with Karen. We got lots of kids and damn near no time for us, so food HAS replaced sex in some ways...so I guess I do see your point.

catspaw

Subject: RE: food songs
From:
Date: 15 Mar 99 - 07:51 AM

COLCANNON?
And please, Night Owl, who wrote the Watermelon Song (if indeed it's the one about eating a watermelon, with all manner of 'non-verbal' action)? A friend sings it but has forgotten the author, and it's not in the DT - not under this title, anyway. - Thanks, Susanne

Subject: RE: food songs
From: Dani
Date: 15 Mar 99 - 08:31 AM

GREEN AND YELLOW / YELLER / YALLER

Subject: RE: food songs
From: Alistair Robb
Date: 15 Mar 99 - 09:46 AM

There's an extremely rude song called 'The Cucumber Song' by a guy that went out under the name of Ivor Biggun and the Red Nosed Burglars. He made the British charts back in the seventies with a song called the Winkers song (misprint) and he had other choice numbers such as 'I've Farted' 'My Brother's Got Piles' and heaps of others. I was at "that" age when I got hold of the album and it made a great impression on me. If anyone is interested in the lyrics...I was so impressed I still remember most of them.

Subject: RE: food songs
From: Felipa
Date: 15 Mar 99 - 10:01 AM

SOME LITTLE BUG IS GOING TO FIND YOU (it's in the DT), SWEET POTATOES, GOOBER PEAS, MAIL MYSELF TO YOU
if feeling really silly: ON TOP OF SPAGHETTI or BOILED BEEF AND CARROTS
I recall a foody verse to Row row row your boat which begins Hoe, hoe hoe your wheat

Subject: RE: food songs
From: reggie miles
Date: 15 Mar 99 - 10:11 AM

There are a couple of songs that I sing at almost every show. I have a regular Friday evening gig at a little Cajun style restaurant so food songs seem to be appropriate. They were written by a very good friend, Robert Oneman Johnson, who hails from Iowa City. The first is Supper Time and the other is Life's Too Short. Another author I enjoy Bert Williams wrote a song about food that I like to play. Well actually it's about the hazards of eating, it's called Some Little Bug Is Going to Find You.

"When you eat banana fritters, every undertaker titters and the casket makers nearly go insane." Bert Williams

Reggie Miles

Subject: RE: food songs
From: Roger in Baltimore
Date: 15 Mar 99 - 11:50 AM

More songs come to mind. Greg Brown used to sing a song called "Slow Food." Rod Mc Donald has a song about "Corn" that he's not recorded, but he occasionally does in concert.

Roy Blount, Jr. has a series of food poems that just beg for music, "How I love to eat an oyster, nothin's slicker, nothin's moister." This one ends with "I prefer my oysters fried, 'cause then I know my oyster's died."

Roger in Baltimore

Subject: Lyr Add: BREAKFAST BLUES (Trout Fishing in America
From: Roger in Baltimore
Date: 15 Mar 99 - 02:37 PM

I knew there was one lurking in my cranium that wanted to be found. I had to throw that other trash out first to uncover it.


BREAKFAST BLUES
As recorded by Trout Fishing in America on "Who Are These People?" (1994)

You give me hard eggs in the mornin'; cheese omelet you go.
Yeah, you give me hard eggs in the mornin'; cheese omelet you go.
You just hot butter grit your teeth and bear it, girl; I donut love you no more.
(And don't get that glazed look on your face).

Ham bacon you to leave me; I never sausage misery.
Ham bacon you to leave me, darlin'; I never sausage misery.
Well, you treated me so ungrapefruitly, you gave me raisin to be free.
(Orange juice ashamed of yourself now?)

Well, what do you eggs-benedict me to do now? I got muffin else to say.
Yeah, what do you eggs benedict me to do girl? (You butter come up with somethin'.) I got muffin else to say.
Yeah, you left such a waffle toast in my mouth, you biscuit out of town today.
(You know I ain't gonna keep those home fries burning for ya.)

[Repeat the first verse ending with:]
"Ain't gonna quiche you anymore"


I love the blues, I love food, and I love terrible puns. Here it is!!! All wrapped up in one song. What a blessing!

Roger in Baltimore

Subject: RE: food songs
From: Cap't Bob
Date: 15 Mar 99 - 04:48 PM

I think that would have to be "The Tomato Vendetta". My second choice is "Green and Yeller". I did that one today for a group of 5th grade students and they just loved it.

Cap't Bob

Subject: RE: food songs
From: Jo Taylor
Date: 15 Mar 99 - 06:47 PM

I LIKE BANANAS (BECAUSE THEY HAVE NO BONES)

I don't like your peaches 'cos they're full of stones
I like bananas because they've got no bones
Don't give me tomatoes, can't stand ice cream cones
I like bananas because they've got no bones
No matter where I wander with Mary, Jean or Anna
I want the world to know that I love my banana
Cabbages and onions, bring me out in moans
I like bananas because they've got no bones


Why can my memory retain stuff like that?
Jo

Subject: RE: food songs
From:
Date: 15 Mar 99 - 07:00 PM

CHEESEBURGER IN PARADISE, Jimmy Buffett.

JUNK FOOD JUNKIE, which is in the database.

THE BOAR'S HEAD CAROL.

Subject: RE: food songs
From: Susan A-R
Date: 15 Mar 99 - 09:37 PM

Wow! You've got me thinking now. Does anyone know the MotherFolkers song about chocolate? Also, seems to me that Greg Brown also does one about his grandmother putting a taste of summer in jars. (CANNED GOODS) John McCutcheon wrote a watermelon song with a pretty memorable spitting chorus. (WATERMELON)

Subject: RE: food songs
From: Ferrara
Date: 15 Mar 99 - 11:15 PM

"MISS FOGARTY'S CHRISTMAS CAKE." "BLACK, WHITE, YELLOW AND GREEN" (a song about "the rarest plum puddings you ever have seen"). "STRANGERS IN MY SOUP." "A LITTLE BIT OF CUCUMBER." "SAUERKRAUT," by the Berrymans (also called The Refrigerator Song).

Subject: RE: food songs
From: Night Owl
Date: 16 Mar 99 - 01:22 AM

To skw....I have no idea who wrote the "Watermelon Song" I learned. I'm not sure we have the same song. The chorus of the version I know has "creative" sound effects for children to "sing".....words are: Oh-hambone is sweet Chicken is good Possum meat is very,very fine But give me, oh give me I really wish you would That watermelon hanging on the vine.

The verses are about a failed attempt to steal a watermelon from a farmer's field.

Subject: RE: food songs
From: Robin C.
Date: 16 Mar 99 - 02:45 AM

Ferrara, Is that ANIMAL CRACKERS IN MY SOUP?

Subject: RE: food songs
From: MudGuard
Date: 16 Mar 99 - 03:24 AM

Well, although it is more about fluid food (= drink), and even more exactly about the absence of it:
PUB WITH NO BEER!
Andreas

Subject: RE: food songs
From:
Date: 16 Mar 99 - 03:36 AM

Night Owl - thanks. There seem to be two songs (at least) about watermelon. Susan's description of a John McCutcheon song 'with a memorable spitting chorus' sounds more likely for the one I'm thinking of. We'll get there ... - Thanks again, Susanne

Subject: RE: food songs
From:
Date: 16 Mar 99 - 06:02 AM

I like "PRINCESS POO-POO-LY HAS PLENTY PA-PA-YA". I started a thread on this and supplied what lyrics I remembered. I never did get the rest of the lyrics but it doesn't hurt to try again.

Click here to read the thread.

Murray

Subject: RE: food songs
From: Banjer
Date: 16 Mar 99 - 06:15 AM

I would love to help, but at 6am all that comes to mind is Alabam..."some folks say that a tramp won't steal but I caught two in my corn field, I'm on my way...etc."

Subject: RE: food songs
From: Allan C.
Date: 16 Mar 99 - 09:00 AM

Another liquid song (or at least one of my favorite lines is in it): "Baby, You Look Good to Me Tonight"

"...though that I was in a dream when she asked me if I wanted cream."

Subject: RE: food songs
From: Bert
Date: 16 Mar 99 - 10:00 AM

Yes We Have No Bananas
Jellied Eels
Picking All the Big Ones Out
Give us a bash of the Bangers and Mash me Muvver used to make
Food Glorious Food
Digging My Potatoes. (yes we do get sex and food mixed up)
Beautiful Soup (That Lewis Carroll song)
Jelly Bean

Subject: RE: food songs
From: Bert
Date: 16 Mar 99 - 10:00 AM

Whoops, forgot Honeycomb

Subject: RE: food songs
From: AlistairUK
Date: 16 Mar 99 - 10:15 AM

I've Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts

All there sitting in a row

Big ones, small ones some as big as your head...

and that's as much as I remember thank goodness

Subject: RE: food songs
From: catspaw49
Date: 16 Mar 99 - 10:28 AM

Pathetically enough I think I know most of the lyrics to that one Alistair...but I don't think they're worth posting.

I'm stii waiting for ideas from my previous post.

catspaw

Subject: RE: food songs
From: Bert
Date: 16 Mar 99 - 10:47 AM

The Potato Song - Cheryl Wheeler

Subject: RE: food songs
From: AlistairUK
Date: 16 Mar 99 - 11:23 AM

catspaw: oh post them post them do...my great aunt used to sing it all the time and I always felt ashamed that I never remember it as it would have been a traditionally picked up song (extereme tounge-in-cheekness there)

Subject: RE: food songs
From: Ferrara
Date: 16 Mar 99 - 10:25 PM

Yeah catspaw, some of us would like the words (and tune!) of Coconuts. I remember a little more: "There stands me wife, the idol of me life, singin' Roll a bowl a ball a penny a pitch." (which more or less repeats for the chorus.) My dad loved it, sang fragments of it all the time. I think it was about an Italian carnival booth, he loved any spoof of things Italian.

Robin C, "Strangers in My Soup" is in the DT and is sung to the tune of "Strangers in the Night." First heard it at an Open Sing. A show-stopper.

Night Owl, in the 40's my mother sang a much less polite and fairly offensive (by today's standards) version of the watermelon song: "Oh the ham bone am sweet /And the taters am good /And the possum fat and cornbread mighty fine/ But give me, oh give me/ I really wish you would /That water-million hangin' on the vine." She learned it in Georgia....

Subject: RE: food songs
From: Night Owl
Date: 17 Mar 99 - 12:42 AM

Ferrara...the version of "Watermelon" I know came from New England. I'd be interested to know the verses your mother sang..if you remember them.

Subject: RE: food songs
From: Ronn
Date: 17 Mar 99 - 11:42 PM

Hank Williams--Jambalaya;
Tom Waits--Eggs & Sausage;
Rufus Thomas--Fried Chicken;
Dan Penn--Memphis Women and Chicken;
Rev Billy C Wirtz--Your Greens Give Me The Blues;
Duke Tumatoe--Barbeque

These are the ones that AREN'T about sex.

Subject: RE: food songs
From: Mark Roffe
Date: 18 Mar 99 - 12:24 AM

Oh That Gorgonzola Cheese! Nothing ever like it, I suppose. Our tomcat fell a corpse upon the mat when the niff went up his nose. Talk about the flavor of the cracklin on the pork - nothing ever smelt so strong as the beautiful effluvial that filled the house...when the gorgonzola cheese went wrong. (I heard Robin Williamson and his Merry Band sing this one at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco).

Mark

Subject: RE: food songs
From: ddw in windsor
Date: 18 Mar 99 - 12:24 AM

Shel Silverstein's Beans Taste Fine (in DT) and Bo Carter's Beans

ddw

Subject: RE: food songs
From: Barry Finn
Date: 18 Mar 99 - 12:42 AM

"I once was A Cook on a Bark, cook on a bark, cook on a bark". What I had of this (I was searching for the missing rest) sea song of a sea cook who could kill with his cooking skills, is in the forum if you're interested. Barry.

Subject: RE: food songs
From: Barbara
Date: 18 Mar 99 - 01:15 AM

The Hard Cheese of Old England has many puns, including one of my favorite food puns:
"Those Edam foreigners aren't worth cement
Though old Gorgonzola is known for his scent,
And his brother Emil wrote novels in French,
Singing oh, the hard cheese of old England
In old England very hard cheese.

Its something Wallace and Grommit would be proud of, and it's in the DT.

Catspaw, in the food as metaphor category, to go with your salmon mousse, "If girls are made of sugar and spice and everything nice, how come they smell like anchovies?"
There's a wonderful old blues about getting the griddle nice and hot and cooking em slow and easy in lots of butter to make your, uhm, ...pancakes! that's what it was, pancakes -- come out right.
There's also Guy Clark's 'A Little of Both' (on the same album, Keepers as Homegrown Tomatoes, what he also wrote). The chorus goes:
"Give me a bowl of chili
Give me milk and toast
As long as you're dishing it out, Lord,
I'll take a little of both."

Here's the first verse for free:
I like drinking whiskey
I like being straight
I like voodoo spinners
And I like live bait

Blessings,
Barbara

Subject: RE: food songs
From: Penny
Date: 18 Mar 99 - 03:08 PM

The Irish Jubilee, posted to the Forum on 13th January 1998, has some very peculiar food in it. Thanks Wolfgang, for pointing me there.

Subject: RE: food songs
From: folk1234
Date: 18 Mar 99 - 03:32 PM

About 7 or 8 years ago I heard a great food song at Pinewoods, "How Can I Keep From Eating" done to the tune of ".....From Singing". I can't recall who did it and I don't know if it was ever recorded or even written down

Subject: RE: food songs
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 18 Mar 99 - 03:53 PM

Kinky Friedman had "Get your Biscuits in the Oven and your Buns in the Bed". Had some humorous lyrics but I don't remember them. One of my favorites is Paul Barrere' (formerly of Little Feat) doing "Rad Gumbo".

"She don make no etouffee'
But she in the Seafood Hall of Fame
She makes Gumbo- She make a mighty Rad Gumbo
Dat's de only way she can go,
Down at de Club Rad Gumbo"

This song has a real menu of food references, and actually makes me hungry when I hear it. I LOVE that New Orleans food!

Subject: RE: food songs
From: Roger in Baltimore
Date: 19 Mar 99 - 02:53 PM

Get your biscuits in the oven and your buns in the bed,
That's what I to my baby said,
Women's liberation is a'goin' to your head,
Get your biscuits in the oven and your buns in the bed.

I think my first wife destroyed this album. I don't remember verses. Kinky was a tad short of politically correct.

Guy Clark sure does love food. Must be right up there with sex for him. He does another song called "Texas Cookin'".

Roger in Baltimore

Subject: RE: food songs
From: Arkie
Date: 20 Mar 99 - 01:16 PM

Haven't heard the Great Tomato Vendetta in over 20 years and would sure like to hear it again. I've searched for Mason Williams zany recordings for sometime and come up empty. As for other nominations to the list of 'food' songs there is "Coconut" from Harry Nilsson's Songwriter album and "Chicken on a Raft".

Subject: RE: food songs
From: AllisonA(Animaterra)
Date: 20 Mar 99 - 02:41 PM

Greg Brown also does a wonderful song called (I think) "Taste a Little of the Summer" about his grandmother's magic with a canner. I wish I knew the words or what recording it was on- it's definitely my favorite food song. [=Canned Goods]
For my most favorite disgusting food song, it's got to be "Comet" as sung by Sandy and Caroline Paton!

Subject: RE: food songs
From: Arkie
Date: 20 Mar 99 - 03:23 PM

Dang computer caved in under the weight of all these deep thoughts. A few others to add to the pot:

Just a Bowl of Butter Beans,

Beans In My Ears;

Turnip Greens;

and for another instrumental, Whiskey Before Breakfast.

Subject: Lyr Add: CANNED GOODS (Greg Brown)^^
From: rich r
Date: 20 Mar 99 - 04:38 PM

Greg Brown's great song "Canned Goods" is on three of his recordings; One Night (1983), One More Goodnight Kiss (1988), and The Live One (1995). The first one in an out of print LP recorded at the Coffehouse Extempore in Minneapolis. The latter 2 are available as CD on the RedHouse Records label. A complete discography, most of his lyrics and other stuff can be found at:

http://www.wing.net/gbrown/index.html?

"Canned Goods"
words & music by Greg Brown

Well let the wild winter wind bellow and blow
I'm as warm as a July tomato

[chorus:]
There's peaches on the shelf, potatoes in the bin
Supper ready, everybody come on in
Taste a little of the summer
Taste a little of the summer
Taste a little of the summer
Grandma put it all in jars

Well there's a root cellar, fruit cellar down below
Watch your head now, and down we go

[repeat chorus]

Well maybe you are weary and you don't give a damn
I bet you never tasted her blackberry jam

[repeat chorus]

Oh she got magic in her, you know what I mean
She puts the sun and rain in with her beans

[repeat chorus]

What with the snow and the economy and everything
I think I'll just stay down here and eat until spring

[repeat chorus]

When I go down to see Grandma, I gain a lot a weight
With her dear hands she gives me plate after plate
She cans the pickles, sweet and dill
And the songs of the whip-poor-will
and the morning dew and the evening moon
I really gotta go down and see her soon
Cause the canned goods that I buy at the store
Ain't got the summer in em anymore
You bet Grandma as sure as you're born
I'll take some more potatoes and a thunder storm

[repeat chorus]

While searching for something else on the net I encountered the following site that lists the title of 333 songs about food. There are no lyrics and they are primarily rock/pop/broadway material, but is is a long list that may get some folks thinking (or perhaps wondering what is in the fridge)

http://mixedup.com/foodsongs.htm

rich r

Subject: RE: food songs
From:
Date: 20 Mar 99 - 05:40 PM

While not about food alone, "Vanilla" by Shel Silverstein.

Subject: RE: food songs
From: Susan A-R
Date: 21 Mar 99 - 12:09 AM

Catspaw, we're still waiting for "the Coconut Song."