My not one but two stupid guest tricks

[Main Streeter]

Wasn't this song The Erie Canal? Guess I could google :)

[felinefan]

Yes, it was.

I got a mule, her name is Sal,
Fifteen miles down the Erie Canal.
She's a good old worker and a good old pal--
Fifteen miles down the Erie Canal.
We've pulled some barges in our day--
Filled with lumber, coal and hay,
And we know every inch of the way--
From Albany to Buffalo.
Low bridge, ev'rybody down,
Low bridge, 'cause we're coming to a town.
You'll always know your neighbor,
You'll always know your pal--
If you've ever navigated on the Erie Canal!

Get up there, Sal, we've passed that lock--
Fifteen miles down the Erie Canal--
We'll keep on workin' 'til six o'clock,
Fifteen miles down the Erie Canal.
Just one more trip and back we'll go--
Through the rain and sleet and snow
And we know every inch of the way
From Albany to Buffalo.
Low bridge, ev'rybody down,
Low bridge, 'cause we're coming to a town--
And you'll always know your neighbor,
You'll always know your pal--
If you've ever navigated on the Erie Canal!

[Mayonnaise]

Whoa... people know that song other places? I learnt that song in the 2nd grade, on a class trip in a paddleboat down the Erie Canal!!!! (The point being to show us how the locks worked.)

8^P

[GRUMPY PIRATE]

"And drill ye tarriers drill!"

"oh its work all day for sugar in your tay"...

[mechurchlady]

Whoa... people know that song other places? I learnt that song in the 2nd grade, on a class trip in a paddleboat down the Erie Canal!!!! (The point being to show us how the locks worked.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23GDoyaxIig
Bruce Springstein and Seeger Sessions as well there is one that is done in Belfast that you can find on youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvfETdUX8Co
Shining Time Station

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDomF2FKwUQ
Captain Kangaroo had it on a record around 1958

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_Bridge_(song)
It ha been around since 1905 and many people have sung it besides The Boss.

[Ho-say]

Whoa... people know that song other places?

Yep! I grew up just outside of Boston, and my 5th grade teacher made us learn and perform that song for some school show

[Mayonnaise]

Wow... even Bruce Springsteen sang it... and here I was thinking that was something they only knew at the canal. Like you learn certain old old songs at the Colonial Williamsburg town.

8^)

[disneyaddict]

Whoa... people know that song other places?

They make all the elementary schoolers learn it in Cabell County, WV. Or at least, they did when I was there. It was part of the curriculum in music class...

There's a few different names for the song.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_Bridge_(song)

I found a clip of it, too:

http://www.songsforteaching.com/ginsbur ... ecanal.mp3

[felinefan]

Yep, out here on the West Coast, those Silver Burdett books we had featured not only Erie Canal, but the Hokey Pokey (which everytime we got a substitute teacher who'd been pulled from retirement had us do--you could always tell which classes had an elderly sub if you could hear the good old "Hokey Pokey" playing. I saw the history on it in a songbook, and it was labeled "A Florida play-party game song", based on the cry of Italian ice cream vendors who sold what cheap Italian ice cream, calling 'Hoc et poco ' meaning "Here's a bit', to attract customers. It got to the point that the ice cream came to be called hokey-pokey, and it also came to mean anything cheap.

Anybody here remember Michie Banjo, The Boarshead, the original form of Greensleeves, Cielito Lindo, etc.?

[Whazzup]

"And drill ye tarriers drill!"

"oh its work all day for sugar in your tay"...

I remember that song, and also Erie Canal, from grade school. Our high school choir instructor used to teach us all the old "gang" songs (that's what they called them way back then), with 4-part harmony, like Drifting and Dreaming, With Someone Like You, Those Wedding Bells are Breaking Up That Old Gang of Mine, etc.
Not what a bunch of teenagers wants to learn to sing, but I'm glad he taught them to us because they are old classics that have stuck in my mind for many years.