We gotta put shoes on Willie,
We gotta get 'em on somehow,
From the size of his beard and the things I've heared,
Willie is a big boy now.
He's a courtin' his cousin Tillie,
And whenever he milks the cow,
He's a hummin' a song and a milkin' too long,
And a gruntin' like a lovesick sow.
Last night I seen him behind the shed,
Sparkin' like a lightnin' rod,
And if he's gonter wed,
the durn fool critter's got to be shod,
So go get our relations, cuz Willie may begin a row,
It took his uncles and aunts to put him into pants,
And we gotta get the shoes on now somehow,
We gotta get the shoes on now.
Where oh where is the mail order catalog,
Grampa was lookin' at it last,
Grampa, Grampa, gimme that catalog,
Here, I'm abringin' it fast.
Now doncha tear the pages with the shoes on,
Say, Ma, what size'll we get?
Well, ya might try a pair a twenty-twos on,
Our Willie's a growin' yet.
Now how about the color?
Well, black's kinda mighty nice.
Brown is snappier in town.
No, black is better, but we'll make a compromise,
One shoe black and the other one brown.
We gotta put shoes on Willie,
We gotta get 'em on somehow.
It took his uncles and aunts to put him into pants,
And we gotta get the shoes on now, somehow,
We gotta get the shoes on now!
Found a copy of the song with its tune: https://archive.org/details/78_we-got-to-put-shoes-on-willie_stanley-fritts-and-the-korn-kobblers-stanley-fritts-f_gbia0202875a
9 comments:
Wow! That's a bizarre, almost naughty song!
I know. And we were in 8th grade, for God's sake. My friends Marla and Marilyn and I were going to pantomime (aka lipsync) it, but the record broke just before we went on, so we sang it. And we won the talent show. We were proud, but from 50+ years out, I'm wondering at the mentality that thought we were so cute. There are a couple of places that are close enough to being naughty that I'll bet my parents heard about it afterwards. But I never had a clue!
I thought your parents were where you learned that one.
Nope, it came from Marla, I think. I wonder what my folks thought!
Well, I seem to remember your mother singing it when I was a child, so they must not have been too scandalized. :)
I just thought that I'd just google for the words. I'm surprised that I found this. When we were married in 1957, we had the record of this tune. We were young and just loved singing this song, it was all in fun.There's couple of places in the song may have been a little naughty in those day when it was first out. But it wouldn't naughty now-a-days.
I'm glad you posted your knowledge of the song, Margaret. I've been surprised and a bit tickled that quite a few people do come to this post via google. Amazing that it's been remembered all these years!
Remember this from when I was a kid. Gonna have everyone sing it at Thanksgiving. Might edit a line or two. Thanks so much for posting.
Yeah - we used to sing this song all the time around the house in the late 1940's. Years later we could not remember all the words.
Thanks much!
I never new it was "naughty" at age 6. I guess it is a little.
I figured "sparkin'" meant something like falling in love.
And milkin' the cow too long! Now I can see that could be naughty, but aqt age 6, 8 I had no idea.
Still fun!
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