"Turkey in the Straw"

	In the second edition of this work, a handful of wandering verses sung to the melody of this familiar fiddle tune was gathered under the title of "There Was an Old Lady."
Better had they been identified as verses of "Turkey in the Straw."  More variants have come to hand.

[ A ]

Oh, she riddled and she diddled and she shat on the floor,
And she wiped her arse on the knob of the door.
And the moon shown down on the end of her tit,
And she brushed her teeth with bluebird shit.

	This is from Canfield's 1926 collection.

[ B ]

	While the quatrain entered under "A" uses only the melody of the verse of "Turkey in the Straw," this mock square dance call also employs the turn of the tune, the second strain of the melody, as well.  It was contained in the Canfield collection.

Oh! the cat couldn't kitten and the dog couldn't pup,
And the old man couldn't get his proposition up.
Oh! the first lady forward and the second lady back,
And the third lady's finger up the fourth lady's crack. 
	Swing your partner!  Grease your pole!
	Go to hell, God damn your soul!
	Oh! the first lady forward and the second lady back,
	And the third lady's finger up the fourth lady's crack. 
	
[ C ]

	And a slight variant of the "C text, again from Canfield's collection, with the contribution's instruction: "To be used for 'Virginia Reel' or square dances."

First lady forward, second lady pass
Third lady's finger up the fourth lady's ass.
Ladies with the bad breath balance to the wall.
Go to hell, go to hell; God damn you all.

First lady backward, second lady front,
Third lady's finger up the fourth lady's cunt.
Ladies with the monthlies balance to the wall.
Go to hell, go to hell' God damn you all.


[ D ]

	The Canfield Collection made in 1926 has this scatological ditty set to the familiar tune.

I dreamt last night and the night before
That the devil was a-knocking on the shit-house door.
I went down stairs to let him in,
And he cracked my ass with a rolling pin.
	I ran upstairs to crawl into bed,
	And fell in the pisspot over my head.
	I couldn't swim and the I couldn't float,
	A great big turd slid down my throat.

[ E ]

	A variant of "D," this is from the William Bigford collection.  (See the entry under "Gilderoy," below.)  The first stanza is a variant of a commonly found children's nonsense rhyme.

I dreamt last night, the night before,
Two tom cats at the stairway door.
I went downstairs to let them in.
They knocked me down with a rollin' pin.

I went upstairs to go to bed;
I fll in the pisspot, ass over head.
I went downstairs to dry my frock;
Fell in the fire and I burnt my cock.

[ F ]

Said the little red rooster to the little red hen,
"I ain't see you lay in God knows when."
Said the little red hen to the little red rooster,
"You don't fuck me as much as you used to."

	From William Bigford.  (See "Gilderoy" below.)

[ G ]

I went upstairs and I had good luck.
Seventeen maidens I did fuck.
Seven of them, I knocked up,
The end of my whole monkey chunk [sic].

	From William Bigford.  (See "Gilderoy" below.)

[ H ]

Went upstairs to get a glass of cider,
There I saw a bedbug jackin' off a spider.
I went downstairs to get a glass of gin.
There I saw the sons of bitches doin' it again.
	Said to myself, "That'll never do,"
	So I jumped in the corner and I jacked off too.

	From William Bigford.  (See "Gilderoy" below.)

[ I ]

Old Mother Hubbard went a-floatin' down a stream,
Her ass full of buttrmilk, her cunt full of cream.
Old Mother Nickamocker doesn't give a damn,
Just let a nigger fuck her as any other man.

Old Mother Hubbard was churning her butter,
Along came Bill and sore he'd fuck her.
He drew down his breeches and pulled out his slag;
He sho'ed it up into her clear to his bag.

	From William Bigford.  (See "Gilderoy" below.)  Collector Paul Gifford added a note: "I've heard the tune 'Miss McLeod's Reel' called 'Old Mother Knickerbocker,' which I suspect is another version of [melody for] this song."



[ J ]

	The Indiana University Folklore Archives contained this extended lyric to "Turkey in the Straw," given by Dale Tooley of Boulder, Colorado, in 1953, to Phil Savage.  The "long-tailed Studebaker," and so on is borrowed from "The Tinker."

Oh, there was an old lady at the age of sixty-three.
She said, "Please, sonny, won't you stick it into me
With your long-tailed Studebaker, asshole-belly-shaker, 
Hi-ho, lady-maker [sic] hangin' to your knee.

Oh, little Tommy Tucker, he came from France.
He played his fiddle at the fiddle-fuckers' dance,
With his long-tailed Studebaker, asshole-belly-shaker,
Hi-h, lady-maker hangin' to his knee.

Oh, a fly flew into the grocery store.
He shit on the counter and he pissed on the floor.
He farted in the coffee and he barfed in the tea.
It splashed on the counter and it got on me.

Chorus:
Come on you bastards, come on your whores,
Pull up your dresses, pull down your drawers.
First lady up and the second lady back,
Third lady's finger in the fourth lady's crack.
	Sung by the whorehouse quartet.

	Cazden, Haufrecht and Studer, p. 614, present the rival claims to the authorship of this familiar tune.  The chorus here is the original "Old Zip Coon" melody, to which new verses were added in the mid-1800's.

[ K ]

This is an aggregation of quatrains sung to the familiar melody, collected by Hubert Canfield in 1926.  According to Canfield's unidentified informant, the last verse is sometimes used as a chorus.

I dreamt last night and the night before
That the devil was a-knocking on the shit house door.
I went down stairs to let him in
And he cracked my ass with his rolling pin.

I ran upstairs to crawl into bed
And fell in the pisspot over my head.
I couldn't swim and I couldn't float,
And a great big turd slid down my throat.

I went downtown to buy a penny drum
Knocked on the door and nobody come.
I picked up a brick and broke the glass.
Out come the Devil a-sliding on his ass.

The Devil shit a monkey and the monkey shit a flea.
The flea shit a sailor and they all went to sea.
The sea begun to roar, the piss begun to pour,
The sailor got a hard-on and couldn't get ashore.

Oh, here's to Sally, who's a goddam whore.
She wiped her ass on the knob of the door.
The moon shone bright on the end of her tit,
And she brushed her teeth with bluejay shit.

Oh, she rolled over once and she rolled over twice,
And she rolled over three times, Jesus Chris~t!
The hair on her coozie was strawberry color,
And the fleas up her ass were fucking one another.

Here's to the Kaiser, the son of a bitch,
May he died of the pox and the seven-year itch.
We'll batter his balls with a seven-pound hammer
Till his asshole whistles "The Star Spangled Banner."

The old man sat on a barbed wire fence
Screwing up his nuts with a monkey wrench,
The grass grew up and tickled his balls
And his gun went off in his overalls.

Fill up the bowl, boys, fill up the bowl,
And drink to the dean, God damn his soul.
We'll all be there when he calls the roll
For we're all going to Heaven up the dean's asshole.

[ L ]

Chorus: 
Oh, the cow kicked Nelly in the belly last night (three times)
But the farmer says she'll be all right.

Leader: 
Second verse, same as the first, a little bit louder and a little bit worse.

(Repeat chorus)

Leader: 
Third verse, same as the first . . .

(And so on through ten verses, each louder and worse than the one before, or until stoned by the pack)

Under the title "The Cow Kicked Nelly," this is number 25 in Paul Woodford, "Hash Hymns II" (Honolulu, Hawaii, 1994).  Woodford notes it is sung to the melody of "Turkey in the Straw."  Since this single quatrain is merely repeated, it is filed here as a version of "Turkey in the Straw," rather than as a separate song. 

[ M ]

Oh, the wiggle of her ass would make a dead man come,
And the nipple on her tit is as big as my thumb,
She's a mean motherfucker, she's a great cocksucker,
She's my girl, she fucks!

Another from Paul Woodford's "Hash Hymns II" (Honolulu, Hawaii, 1994), "Short Song," (number 161) is to be sung to the tune of "Turkey in the Straw."