wfi@unc.UUCP (William F. Ingogly) (05/11/85)
When I was five or six years old ('way back around 1951-1952), my
grandmother used to sing the following song to me to the tune of
'Turkey In The Straw:'
There was an old soldier
And he had a wooden leg
And he had no tobacco
No tobacco could he beg
And there was an old sailor
As sly as a fox
And he always had tobacco
In his old tobacco box
Said the soldier to the sailor
"Would you give me a chew?"
Said the sailor to the soldier
"I'll be danged if I do!"
Save up your money
And throw away your rocks
And you'll always have tobacco
In your old tobacco box!
I've never heard anyone else sing this song, or seen it reproduced
anywhere. My grandmother had a fixed repertoire of songs she would
sing to me: "Buffalo Gals," "K-k-k-katie," "She'll Be Comin' Round
the Mountain," "My Darlin' Clemintine," and a number of others. She
was of English-Irish ancestry, and her great-great-great grandparents
settled in western Illinois in the 1830's (I think they came from
Maine and Ohio, primarily).
Does anyone know the origin of the "Tobacco Box Song," or has anyone
else in this group at least heard it before?
-- Cheers, Bill Ingogly