Sunday, June 03, 2012

Oysters

Mavis asks:
Did you say [your mother] used to sing a song about oysters when you would ride in the car? Do you remember Father and Son in an Oyster Stew?
Did I mention that, really [yes you did--look here--ed.]?  The answer is "yes," she sang it to fend off mayhem in the back seat and I am surprised how shadowy is its web footprint.  I suppose it could have been an advertising jingle, though if so you think we might have heard more of it.  Anyway, she sang a lot of such songs: "The Moon Shines Tonight on Pretty Red Wing;" "My Girl's a Corker, She's a New Yorker."  Most of which you might call "rowdy college boy" songs, though I suspect she didn't know all that many rowdy college boys (I think she would have liked to, but they weren't on offer).  All with saucy subtexts which she was tactful enough not to inflict on her prepubescent audience.   Though I certainly heard them from her later: I think I have noted before that I never told her an ahem  indelicate story that she didn't know before I told it to her, and the proof was that she would interrupt with the punch line.

Lyrics to "Oyster Stew"are here.  Down-home "Red Wing" did not sound quite like the following, but it's close enough:




1 comment:

Jimbo said...

Hmmm, I'm not sure what prompted this post. Still, when I was a toddler, my Mom used to sing Patti Page's "How Much is That Doggie in the Window", which I loved but I quickly transitioned to "The Flying Purple People Eater" and never looked back at GOP POP music.