We were sitting in the hospital and dad out of blue said he had an old lyric from a song in his head and wandered what the rest of the song was. The lyric was, "he combed his hair with a wagon wheel and died of a toothache in his heel." Well, none of us had ever heard of it and frankly, I thought he was probably hallucinating. But, Google is a wonderful thing and the very first hit was the lyrics to the song. Here is the verse that contains the lyric dad remembered:
Old Daniel Tucker wuz a mighty man,
He washed his face in a fryin' pan;
Combed his head wid a wagon wheel
And he died wid de toofache in his heel.
A bit later, he remembered this lyric, "Arm in arm over meadow and farm, Walking my baby back home." Once again, Google to the rescue came up with the song "Walking My Baby Back Home" that has this verse:
Gee it's great after being out late,
Walking my baby back home.
Arm in arm over meadow and farm,
Walking my baby back home.
Finally, after a bit more time, he came up with this lyric, "Around the corner, and under a tree, A Sergeant Major made love to me." This was a bit more risque than the other. I found the complete lyric in this post. The lyrics are:
Around the corner, and under a tree,
A Sergeant Major made love to me.
He kissed me once--he kissed me twice,
It wasn’t quite the thing to do,
But gosh, it was so nice!
It is amazing how his mind is working, remembering things from way back in time with great clarity.
