Songs Of My Dad
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Old Pappy liked his music just like most normal people often do,
So occasionally when he was in a good mood he sang some too.
This poem reviews that side of Dad that not many people knew.
Because he never sang in public perhaps for fear of bad reviews.
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Songs Of My Dad
When I was a young boy, my Dad couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket,
So when he got in the singing mood, he made a lot of loud racket.
The songs he sang were mostly old songs from his own past,
That he sang off tune real slow never ever singing very fast.
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But it still sounded good because when he sang he was happy,
And we had a lot of fun when he got in a mood and acted sappy.
So his songs were music to my ears when he did decide to sing,
That brought me a lot of joy as he did his happy mood thing.
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One song he sang was the “Tennessee Waltz” by Patti Page,
He would sing “I was waltzing with my darling…” as he did sway,
Back and forth as if he were waltzing with my Mom so happy,
Right across that old hardwood floor looking so very snappy.
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He did one song that was more of a back woods country rap.
He sang “Peckerwood Soup” as his knuckles on the table he tapped.
He said “Peckerwood Soup, Peckerwood Soup, & Jaybird Gravy,”
Perhaps a little ditty that he learned on active duty in the Navy.
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He loved that song by Eddy Arnold called “Cattle Call” on the range,
He would do those yodels with Eddy which sounded strange.
As he couldn’t hit the “Do Oooo, Do Oooo, Do Oooo Do Tee Hee”
High notes as he so happily sang along with so very much glee.
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Another song he sang was an old civil war song called “Goober Peas.”
At first it confused me as I knew what a goober was and also pee,
Until he told me Goober Peas were peanuts way back then.
He sang ” Sitting by the roadside on a summers day…..” very often.
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Often he sang a song called “Sixteen Tons” about coal mines,
It may have reminded him of his boyhood days of old times,
As he particularly liked where the guy sings about fists of steel,
And says “If the right one don’t get you, then the left one will.”
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There was this song called “Old Rattler”, by GrandPa Jones,
That he sang about an old coon dog whose voice changed tones,
When Rattler treed a coon up in the old oak tree out in the woods.
It starts off “Rattler was a good old dog…..” as it really should.
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When Dad got older and retired in Fritch, Texas, to rest his body,
He often went to the garage and slipped him in a nice hot toddy.
He had at radio out there and he listened to music as he drank.
Marty Robbins became his favorite singer as he filled his tank.
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So I made him a 90 minute cassette tape of Marty’s best songs,
And sent it to him so that he could play it and sing right along.
I think he wore that old cassette tape to a beat up old frazzle,
Playing it in his car when they often did take a trip and travel.
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By Bill
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Thanks for reading Songs Of My Dad,
Bill