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22 Oct 00 - 06:08 PM (#324794) Subject: Entomographical Hymnody: The Potato Bug Hymn From: Haruo The past couple days I went to a Baptist Men's Conference at Camp Burton (on an island not far from Seattle). It was a very interesting time, with a fascinating speaker (Bob Swann, Minister of Mission at First Baptist of Vancouver, BC) and lots of good old gospel-hymn singing (Pass Me Not type stuff) around the piano. Late Friday night (after midnight) my friend Marc and I wandered down to the beach to talk about whether Custer was a scumbag and whatnot, and we sat on bench, and a little potato bug was traveling along the back of the bench. (The potato bug, in NW US usage, is what is also called a "sow bug" [or "sal bug"] or a "wood louse"==a little crustacean that looks like the star of "Honey I Shrunk the Armadillo"; they like to get under rocks and logs and roof shingles and just hide out in the dark. They are not the same as the insect, formally known as the "Colorado potato beetle", that is also nicknamed "potato bug".) The next morning, during the half hour before breakfast, we were supposed to "go off to a quiet place, by ones or twos, and read Psalm 42. Think of something you have seen in nature that could give you a psalm or a song about a similar longing for God. Discuss your thoughts at breakfast." Unbidden there came to me, to O TANNENBAUM THE POTATO BUG HYMN Anybody know any other good hymns on insects? I imagine the immediate prompting for the Potato Bug Hymn came from the Primitive Baptist "Hail, ye sighing sons of sorrow", Goble no.104, which I had recently read in The Sound of the Dove; it contains the hilarious lines (beginning of 3rd stanza): Ah! their moans to me how wounding, Blessings, Liland |
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22 Oct 00 - 06:18 PM (#324805) Subject: RE: Entomographical Hymnody: The Potato Bug From: Sorcha Marvelous!! I love it, and I bet Praise will too. We tend to forget that God, whatever we call H/She/It can be found in the lowliest places. What did the other fellows think of it?
If there is not, there should be a song about the only kosher insect--the grasshopper with the Hebrew character (chaim?) on it. Think what someone with talent could do with spiders and webs--(technically they aren't insects, but........) |
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22 Oct 00 - 06:22 PM (#324809) Subject: RE: Entomographical Hymnody: The Potato Bug From: Liz the Squeak And I thought I wrote some weird stuff under the influence of religion!! How about something on the lines of:
O little pile of cockroaches, Spent a day last week at London Zoo, their display 'Web of Life' is phenomenal - more bugs than live in a s*itty stick..... I like the dung beetles best. I appear to have bugs on the brain..... ho hum.... LTS |
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22 Oct 00 - 06:28 PM (#324818) Subject: RE: Entomographical Hymnody: The Potato Bug From: Sorcha God loves creepy crawlies as much as anybody, and more than me!! LOL!! Oh NO--now I am starting to think of new creepy crawly lyrics--HELP!! |
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22 Oct 00 - 06:28 PM (#324819) Subject: RE: Entomographical Hymnody: The Potato Bug From: catspaw49 Well.....not quite related, only sorta'......There was a Great Lakes Captain of some fame who eventually went down in a severe storm who was best known by his nickname. His name was Theodore Burke and as a child he had a hard time pronouncing his common name, Teddy Burke. It always came out as "Tatey Bug".........and that's how he was known for all time.......Tatey Bug Burke. Spaw |
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22 Oct 00 - 06:36 PM (#324826) Subject: RE: Entomographical Hymnody: The Potato Bug From: Liz the Squeak Thank heaven I only came out as Lifferbiff... no front teeth was the explaination.... LTS |
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22 Oct 00 - 08:01 PM (#324890) Subject: RE: Entomographical Hymnody: The Potato Bug From: Sorcha Well, along those lines, my daddy called me "Cockroach" when I was little because of the way I skittered around.......perhaps not a good omen, huh? (I must confess, I do have a perhaps greater than normal fondness for cockroaches even if they are dirty, nasty bugs. Never met any Palmetto Bugs and don't want to either. Even cockroaches are preferrable to slugs of any sort.) |
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22 Oct 00 - 08:06 PM (#324894) Subject: RE: Entomographical Hymnody: The Potato Bug From: Nathan in Texas One from Ogden Nash: God in His wisdom made the fly, And then forgot to tell us why. |
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22 Oct 00 - 08:16 PM (#324902) Subject: RE: Entomographical Hymnody: The Potato Bug From: Nathan in Texas And then there is Barry McGuire's second biggest hit, Bullfrogs and Butterflies, both been born again!
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22 Oct 00 - 08:21 PM (#324909) Subject: RE: Entomographical Hymnody: The Potato Bug From: Hotspur I don't suppose "All Things Dull and Ugly" from Monty Python would really count, would it, since it's sarcasm?
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22 Oct 00 - 08:34 PM (#324924) Subject: RE: Entomographical Hymnody: The Potato Bug From: Metchosin well to some Itsy Bitsy Spider is a song of faith. |
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22 Oct 00 - 08:36 PM (#324926) Subject: RE: Entomographical Hymnody: The Potato Bug From: Sorcha I thought of that earlier, Mets, and really, isn't it? Just keep trying........... |
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22 Oct 00 - 09:42 PM (#324988) Subject: RE: Entomographical Hymnody: The Potato Bug From: raredance "Eensie-Weensie Spider" in the DT might qualify (not to be confused with "Itsy Bitsy Spider") rich r |
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23 Oct 00 - 07:44 AM (#325199) Subject: RE: Entomographical Hymnody: The Potato Bug From: sian, west wales Just what keeps that little ol' ant Tryin' to climb that rubber tree plant? Doesn't he know and ant can't Climb a rubber tree plant? But he's got .... (all together now...) sian |
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23 Oct 00 - 08:09 AM (#325207) Subject: RE: Entomographical Hymnody: The Potato Bug From: catspaw49 Got anything for a Dung Beetle? Spaw |
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23 Oct 00 - 11:17 AM (#325293) Subject: RE: Entomographical Hymnody: The Potato Bug From: Haruo I am happy to report that I have now been asked to give a Children's Sermon on Potato Bugs sometime soon. Liland |
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23 Oct 00 - 11:42 AM (#325308) Subject: RE: Entomographical Hymnody: The Potato Bug From: wysiwyg I do love it. And the resulting chat and ideas. All God's Critters Got a Place in the Choir. How Can I Keep From Stinging? Hahahaaaaaaah! Someone start the words, we can make a song together! Hahaaa!!! Stinging! Blues bug gospel, lessee... Born [Again Buggy] in Chicago? Ummm... it's Monday... last week as a hired brain at Red Cross... bugs... lessee... hymns and bugs... Oh yes, of course--
On the wings of a snow white moth Yup. Do it Saturday night real soon. OKdokey? ~S~ |
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23 Oct 00 - 11:43 AM (#325310) Subject: RE: Entomographical Hymnody: The Potato Bug From: wysiwyg Sorry. That blues one should be Rehatched in Chicago. Polka on, pals. ~S~ |
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23 Oct 00 - 01:19 PM (#325393) Subject: RE: Entomographical Hymnody: The Potato Bug From: Haruo Thanks, Praise. Don't think I saw anybody mention "Ladybird, ladybird, fly away home"; Peter Paul & Mary used to sing a version of it, and there's a different version in the DT (more recent; it refers to the telly). 'Course, where I come from they're ladybugs. Sorcha, I agree there should be hymns about kosher insects; I think what you're calling a grasshopper is what the Christian Scriptures call a locust, part of the diet of John the Baptist. As a Baptist I have long thought we should eat more insects at our potlucks. (Gimme dat ol' time cuisine!) (Of course, I'm the one who in another thread was extolling geoduck sushi, which I'm afraid is treyf.) Liland |
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23 Oct 00 - 02:15 PM (#325431) Subject: RE: Entomographical Hymnody: The Potato Bug From: catspaw49 Still nothin' on Dung Beetles huh? Oh well....lessee here..............
With Dung Beetles I'll take communion
Gimmee that ol' time religion.............. Spaw |
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23 Oct 00 - 04:14 PM (#325533) Subject: RE: Entomographical Hymnody: The Potato Bug From: paddymac I just had to browse this thread 'cause I love the title. My curiosity has been rewarded in many ways, but especially by 'Spaw's contirbution of the "Official Million-and-Oneth" verse to "Old Time Religion". Now for the "Million-and-Senond": Out of all Creator's beasties, My favorites are the leasties, From the labors of the yeasties, God makes booze for you and me. |
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23 Oct 00 - 04:49 PM (#325574) Subject: RE: Entomographical Hymnody: The Potato Bug From: wysiwyg L'chaim! What about that one about bury me under the green beans or something? Help me out-- I know I heard sumpin' like that... we could use it for a folkie funeral.... it's very spiritual, must be, if I recall it at all... from the wackos at the Libertyville School of Folk Music an hour north of Chicago. Someone... Sleep. And MORE BEER. MUST HAVE BEER. ~S~ |
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23 Oct 00 - 07:23 PM (#325721) Subject: RE: Entomographical Hymnody: The Potato Bug From: catspaw49 Thank you paddy....and thanks for yours!!! OTR has really taken a beatin' over the years hasn't it? Spaw |
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27 Oct 12 - 12:04 PM (#3426899) Subject: RE: Entomographical Hymnody: The Potato Bug From: Haruo The worms play pinochle on your snout... What are the words to the sacred version of St. James' Infirmary? |
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27 Oct 12 - 08:30 PM (#3427086) Subject: RE: Entomographical Hymnody: The Potato Bug From: Joe_F We may recall that the biologist J. B. S. Haldane, asked if his studies had led him to infer anything about the Creator, is said to have replied, "He seems to have had an inordinate fondness for beetles." |
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28 Oct 12 - 01:12 AM (#3427157) Subject: RE: Entomographical Hymnody: The Potato Bug From: Jim Dixon Bill Holm, a poet from Minneota, Minnesota, a small town on the prairie, wrote a book called "Boxelder Bug Variations: A Meditation on an Idea in Language and Music." You can see several pages of it at Amazon.com. In summer, boxelder bugs live in great numbers on boxelder trees, and in fall, they they seek warm places to overwinter. So if you have a boxelder tree near your house, you will likely find hundreds of boxelder bugs crawling up the sunny side of your house and squeezing into the cracks around your doors or window sashes, where they also tend to get squashed. They smell awful when squashed. Other than the annoyance factor, they are rather harmless. Here's one of Bill's poems: THE BOXELDER BUG PRAYS I want so little For so little time, A south window, A wall to climb, The smell of coffee, A radio knob, Nothing to eat, Nothing to rob, Not love, not power, Not even a penny. Forgive me only For being so many. |
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28 Oct 12 - 02:27 AM (#3427170) Subject: RE: Entomographical Hymnody: The Potato Bug From: Haruo And then there's the whole Lushootseed-instigated "Lady Louse" genre, some of which is in verse. |