 sj |
||
|
||
| |||||
HUNGRY GOAT There was a man by the name of Billy Hall He had a goat and that ain't all One day his goat was feeling fine Ate six red shirts right off the line First Billy cursed and then he swore That doggone goat would eat no more He took him by his wooly back And tied him to the railroad track Say au revoir if not goodbye The big black train is drawing nigh The goat he gave a shriek of pain Coughed up the shirts and flagged the train The engineer stopped, got out to see What this strange thing on the tracks might be And when he saw it was a goat He took his knife and cut its throat Now this poor goat was surely dead He went to heaven without his head When he got there Saint Peter said "Tell me, poor goat -- where is your head?" The goat replied, "I cannot tell - It must have gone right down to la-de-da-de-da-de-da De-da-de-da- de da-de-da de-da- HEY! As sung at Boy Scout Camporee Jefferson County, KY (Louisville) circa 1947 John Garst wrote: three variants. > 1 A Highland goat was feeling fine It ate three red shirts right off the line ... 2 Bill Grogan's goat was feeling fine Ate three red shirts right off the line ... 3 There was a girl, called Clementine Hung three red shirts upon the line ... > Some information is given at the on-line Ballad Index. There it is stated that the song is American ("Highland goat"?) and that the earliest known appearance is 1945. > Norm Cohen, in Long Steel Rail (1st ed) notes a 1923 recording by Fiddling John Carson and gives references to many appearances in print as well as sound recording, the earliest printed version being from 1904 ("The Tale of the Shirt" Norm thinks that "the persistent Irish association suggests that the piece dates from the 1880s." [JG] @animal @train filename[ GOATSHR2 RB  8note Sheet |
|