Lye Soap

[stoutfellow]

While I was washing the dishes this afternoon, an old song from my Scouting days came to mind, and, well, it's National Poetry Month. Doggerel counts, doesn't it?

Have you heard
Of Grandma's lye soap,
Good for everything
In the home?
And the secret
Was in the scrubbing
It didn't suds, it didn't foam!

So sing right out
For Grandma's lye soap
Sing right out
All over the place!
The pots and the kettles
The dirty dishes
And for your hands
And for your face!

Little Herman
And brother Thurman
Had an aversion
To washing their ears.
Grandma scrubbed them
With her lye soap
And they haven't heard a word in years!

So sing right out...

Mrs. O'Malley
Down in the valley
Suffered from ulcers
I understand.
She swallowed a cake of
Grandma's lye soap;
She's got the cleanest ulcers in the land!

So sing right out...

(Thanks to countrycousin for a correction to the lyrics.)

Comments

[countrycousin.livejournal.com]

heh. I remember that. Homer and Jethro, was it? I remember Mrs. O'Malley as only needing a cake to attain her pristineness, but my ears aren't all that good; perhaps I misheard.

Thanks for the memory.
;<)

(I'm My Own Grandpa came from around then, too)

[stoutfellow.livejournal.com]

"Cake" does make more sense, doesn't it? I think I'll fix it. I'm going off a memory from 35 years ago, and am as likely to be wrong as you are.

I have no idea as to the source; one of the older Scouts taught it to us. He was also the person who introduced me to "The M.T.A.", among other things.

[countrycousin.livejournal.com]

Charlie on the MTA? Don't know who started it, but the Kingston Trio popularized it. They reprised it in a PBS special a few years ago that you can catch during pledge drives.

[stoutfellow.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry, I wasn't asking about "The M.T.A."; I've got two different recordings of the Trio performing it. One is, I think, the original, and the other from years later - it includes a lot of, well, just messing around.

[countrycousin.livejournal.com]

Apparently Homer and Jethro did I'm My Own Grandpa, and Johnny Standley did Grandma's Lye Soap. Didn't recall any of that, got it on the web.

[filkferengi]

Woof! [quoth the spouse of the Stray Doggerel Man.]