Last Friday, I made reference to the "Mister Fly" song in my post. It turns out that a great number of people were not exposed to this song in their youth, I'm sorry to say. I heard it not too long after the phonics incident, but many times over as I dwelt beneath the children's room window of the local library. While I have always enjoyed the song's lively lilt and it's dark side, I choose to disregard the overall message given in the last line. My Internet searches for the lyrics only turned up a couple of sites that made reference, and those posted are just a little different from my own baby-slug memories of the song. So here I give you, from memory, my rendition of the song. If anyone knows the composer of this piece, please do let me know. I'll save my best cabbage for her or him.
The Tragic Tale of Mr. Fly:
Mr. Fly climbed up a tree,
Cried "I'm high as high can be!"
Lost his grip, came crashing down
Smashed to pieces on the ground
When the insects heard the sound
Echoing for miles around
They began to buzz and cry,
"Quick! First aid for Mr. Fly!"
"Get a bandage, get a splint!"
"Where's the liniment and lint?"
"Someone give him aspirin!"
"Should we call the doctor in?"
Then a wise old flea spoke out,
"You don't know what you're about.
He's beyond the reach of aid;
Get a pick and get a spade."
Then at last those insects knew
What they really had to do.
Now his tombstone bears the scrawl:
He who climbs too high must fall.
***
It's not quite the same read as it is sung, but this will have to do. At least until I release a "Nameless Slug Sings: Dirges in the Pacific Northwest" album.
10 December 2008
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22 comments:
Oh Slug... That is such a sick, sad song... Telling children to not aim for the sky.... Hans Christian Anderson would be proud!
Lyrics look good but somehow the "where's the liniment and lint" seems a bit off. Darned if I could tell you what it should be
I may have mixed up the "get some" and "where's the," i.e., "Where's a bandage, where's a splint? Get some liniment and lint," but the "liniment and lint" part I'm quite certain of.
Another site with the lyrics says it's "some linty liniment" but I disagree (and that makes no sense).
I clearly recall, as I learned the song, hearing a young girl's voice asking the music teacher what liniment was. The music teacher explained and said that the lint would be used to apply the liniment. That then became the young girl's favorite line, to judge from her subsequent repeated singing of those words. Off key.
I'm curious--where did you learn this song? This is exactly the version I used to sing in elementary school. "Where's the liniment and lint" is definitely what we sang.
As you know, all baby slugs come from Denver, and it from a small elementary school in the Denver area (Lakewood, to be precise) that I learned this song. It was in a large book of various songs for children which included, among other things, the full lyrics for "There's a Hole in Your Bucket Dear Liza." In that version, it was "Dear Georgie," not "Dear Henry," with whom Liza had her conversation, though Henry seems to be the popular choice among some crowds. The book also contained, if memory serves, two different versions of "The Golden Vanity," a song about a sinking ship. Not exactly the jaunty, uplifting tunes one might expect.
I am so excited that I came across your website! I learned this song as an elementary student in Catholic school! This catchy little tune has stuck in my head for all of these years and I have never been able to come up with all of the lyrics even through internet searches! I have been botching it up for years trying to sing it to my children (my oldest is almost 15)and now I can FINALLY sing it right! I remember the tune like it was yesterday...Thank you, thank you! :)
I've been trying to find the full lyrics to this song myself for a long time! I don't remember everything, and I surely am grateful to have found your version here! Thanks for filling a void -
I didn't recall it being so dark, but then back then, thoughts weren't given as much to that as they are today.
I distinctly recall the line, "some liniment and splint"... but I may have melded that phrase in my memory.
I'm from Atlantic Canada and I remember singing this in elementary school - early 80's! It's definitly "linament & lint." Look up the word lint at dictionary.com:
Medical Dictionary
Function: noun
1 : a soft fleecy material used for poultices and dressings for wounds and made from linen usually by scraping
2 British : sterile cotton cloth used for dressings
Merriam-Webster's Medical Dictionary, © 2002 Merriam-Webster, Inc.
I think our music teacher had the book you mention! Anyone remember these songs:
BONES -
"Bones bones bones rattle rattle
Bones bones bones rattle rattle
click clack rub snap thump bump grind crack BONES!"
GRANDMA'S FEATHER BED -
"It was 9 feet high 6 feet wide
Soft as a downy chick
It was made from the feathers of forty leven geese
Took a whole bolt of cloth for the tick
It would hold 8 kids 4 hound dogs & a piggy we stole from the shed
We didn't get much sleep but we had a lot of fun on Grandma's feather bed."
We also sang a song about a famous ship called the BLUENOSE. I remember it being a slow song and really pretty. "Blue----nose racing every waaaaaave, on the sea"
Fun memories!! Our music teacher was awesome... poor guy managed to keep his sanity after listening to unruley kids squeeling their recorders for 30 fricken years! God luv him!
Im thrilled to have found these lyrics after all the years. Ive researched this over andover through the years and today is the day that the internet caught up with my old music teacher ms. disney. Excellent! Thank you for posting this. Mr Fly is my favorite. These lyrics are as close to right as they could be I think. Ill be singing this all day now.
How about these old favorites from elementary (circa 1976)school?
Em bone gunna rise again. A religious song about how God made humans. ie. "thought hed make a woman too. em bones gunna rise again. Made that woman through and through. em bones gunna rise again. I knowed it knowed indeed I knowed it brother I konwed it weeeee em bones gunna rise again."
or
to the land where teh children run free.
to the land where the something wsomehting something
to the land where the ...
and you and me are free to be'yes you and me are free to be
yes you and me are free to be... you and meeeeeee.
It was dear georgie with the hole in the bucket too. I remember it well. lol
thank you!
chadillac
Thanks for posting these lyrics! We used to sing this song at Girl Scout camp, and I loved it. I remembered all the lyrics except the first two lines of the last verse. Thanks for filling in the blank!
About the liniment line: I remember it as "Get the lini-lintimint" -- as in a silly mispronunciation. But that could be my childhood ear misinterpreting it. (I did know what liniment was when I was that age.)
Thank you! I remember singing this song in music class in elementary school. It wasn't as long ago as it is for some people who've commented (less than 10 years ago), but still I'm glad to have found it! We were always learning interesting songs, some a bit dark:
Old Jim John
He's the oldest man to sit upon
The great big yonder sycamore tree
Old Jim John
When he is dead and gone
There'll be none left on as old as he
(That's not so dark, but there was this one song about a guy named Michael something-or-other who did something and ended up in a grave, and another one about an old railroad worker who died and went to heaven. It had something to do with numbers.)
Of course, some were just random:
Sarah Sponda
Sarah Sponda
Sarah Sponda
Ret-set-set
(repeat above)
A-door-ray-oh
A-door-ray-boon-day-oh
A-door-ray-boon-day-ret-set-set
Hass-say-pahss-say-yo
She said it was an African song made up of the sounds you heard when spinning the cloth for clothing, maybe on a loom.
Anyway, thanks!
Another thanks for posting the lyrics. I remember searching online for the lyrics about 10 years ago, but the internet wasn't what is is now.
Another dark song from elementary school days:
Bill Grogan's goat
Was feeling fine
Ate three red shirts
Right off the line
Bill took a stick
Gave him a whack
And tied him to
The railroad track
The speeding train
Was drawing nigh
Bill Grogan's goat
Was sure to die
He gave three groans
Of awful pain
Coughed up the shirts
And flagged the train
It's amazing we all survived elementary school and did not become sociopaths.
i remember this from grade 1 in toronto. It was part of a program of albums. all i remember was that the albums were in a big plastic case and had numbers on them in colours. we would always sing from these albums. Mr. Wylie grade one in 1974
This song has been stuck in my head for three days now, despite not having heard or sung it since the third grade 17 years ago.
Oh, this song! I haven't heard it in ... oh math ... 28 years, but I still get the melody stuck in my head, though most of the lyrics had disappeared. I learned it from a very new first grade music teacher, who handed us the lyrics on purple mimeographed sheets that smelled funny. There was this one and one about Michael Finnegan and the whiskers on his chinnegan, which was also rather dark. But then, our playground was right next to the cemetery, so I guess that was the least of our worries. Upstate New York is just sort of like that.
I always hated that last line, though. It made my six year old self rather rebellious.
We did not become sociopaths because, unlike kids today, we knew the difference between reality and fiction. And I don't think there's anything wrong with good, sound, realistic advice. Kids these days are told to reach for the stars and all that nonsense, and they are not told that reaching the top and staying there takes hard work. They want everything handed to them on a silver platter, because they are raised that way. They are pampered, over-sensitive and born with complexes becayse their parents worry too much. Let kids be kids! Are you going to exclude Roald Dahl's Revolting Rhymes from your child's books because you are afraid for their delicate sensibilities?
I learned Mr.Fly around 35yrs ago in the 2nd grade at Trout Lake, Wa. I had forgotten some of the lyrics. But even so my wife would often ask me to sing it for her and the kids. The song is talking about Mr.Fly being so proud of getting himself up to the top. That his fall was unavoidable. "Pride comes before a fall." It's a moral lesson. Many old songs are like that it seems. Thank you for the lyrics!
I sang this all the time at my north Texas elementary school as well. It was in the mid '80s. It popped into my head today, but I couldn't remember all the words. Thanks for posting.
Great work! I think it's "Climbed as high as high could be." :)
Thank you I remember this song from elementary in Iowa, but could only remember the first 2 verses. Every so often it pops into my head and I go on a lyrics search. Today was my lucky day. Reading the comments I got a kick out of the person who remembers Grandma's Feather Bed, a John Denver song. My music teacher was a fan as well. I still remember every word of Country Roads.
I remember these, but can't find the lyrics. My cousins learned them in their school and taught them to me. I would love to find the lyrics.
1987 Maywood, nj. Catholic school. We had to sing this every day after morning prayers and pledge of allegiance
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