I Know a Boarding-House

DESCRIPTION: "I know a boarding-house Not far away Where they have ham and eggs Three times a day." "Lord, how those boarders shout..." "Lord, how those boarders yell When they hear that dinner-bell!"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1927 (Harbin-Parodology) for the "organ peeled potatoes" verse; 1938 (recording, Uncle Dave Macon) for the rest
KEYWORDS: food home humorous nonballad derivative campsong
FOUND IN: US(MW,So) Ireland
REFERENCES (10 citations):
Kane-SongsAndSayingsOfAnUlsterChildhood, p. 68, "There is a boarding school" (1 short text)
Peirce-KeepTheKettleBoiling, p. 58, "(There is a happy land)" (1 text)
Randolph 479, "I Know a Boarding-House" (1 text)
Greenway-FolkloreOfTheGreatWest, p. 67, "("There is a happy land [boarding house?]" (1 fragment)
Pankake/Pankake-PrairieHomeCompanionFolkSongBook, "At the Boarding House Where I Live" (1 text, tune referenced); also p. 190, "While The Organ Pealed Potatoes" (1 text, tune referenced)
Harbin-Parodology, #69, p. 23, "While the Organ Peeled" (1 text); #116, p. 35, "Our Boarding House" (1 short text, tune referenced)
Averill-CampSongsFolkSongs, pp. 98, 168, 237, 285, "At the Boardinghouse Where I Lived"/"At the Boardinghouse"/"While the Organ Peeled Potatoes"/"Our Boarding House" (notes only)
MidwestFolklore, W. L. McAtee, "Some Folklore of Grant County, Indiana, in the Nineties," Volume 1, Number 4 (WInter 1951), p. 260, "(Oh! how the boaders yell)" (1 short text)
DT, BORDHOUS* (HAPYLND2*)
ADDITIONAL: _Sing Out_ magazine, Volume 42, #2 (1997), p, 120, "Country Ham and Red Gravy" (1 text, 1 tune, a slightly cleaned-up transcription of the Dave Macon version)
Roud #7636
RECORDINGS:
Uncle Dave Macon, "Country Ham and Red Gravy" (Bluebird 7951, 1938)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "There Is a Happy Land" (tune, form)
cf. "Silver Threads Among the Gold" (tune)
cf. "The Barefoot Boy with Boots On" (floating lyrics)
NOTES [183 words]: This is one of those composite songs -- the key element is humorous verses to the tune of "Silver Threads." The most common verse -- shared with "The Barefoot Boy" -- is "while the organ pealed potatoes"; my father learned this from a substitute teacher in Detroit around 1941.
Dave Macon copyrighted his "Country Ham and Red Gravy" version of this song, which does indeed seem to be a rewrite (rather racist), but it's clearly from the same roots. Though he may have supplied the tune, also known as "New Five Cents."
Laura Ingalls Wilder printed a stanza of this in By the Shores of Silver Lake, chapter 4. If she actually heard it then, it would date the song from 1879. But, of course, she was writing half a century later, and her work is much fictionalized anyway, so that's not a very trustworthy date.
Not every version mentions the boarding house -- e.g. Peirce-KeepTheKettleBoiling's version seems to be a pure parody of "There Is a Happy Land." But it's about the food the singer gets stuck with, and the rest of the lyrics go here. I almost wonder if multiple songs were combined. - RBW
Last updated in version 6.8
File: R479

Go to the Ballad Search form
Go to the Ballad Index Song List

Go to the Ballad Index Instructions
Go to the Ballad Index Bibliography or Discography