Worms Crawl In, The

DESCRIPTION: "Did you ever think when the hearse goes by That you might be the next to die?.... The worms crawl in, the worms crawl out, The worms play pinochle on your snout...." A detailed description of how corruption attacks a body in a grave
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1895 (League of American Wheelmen's "The L. A. W. Bulletin and Good Roads, December 20, 1895)
KEYWORDS: death burial humorous nonballad campsong | worms hearse
FOUND IN: US(MA,MW,SE,So,SW)
REFERENCES (14 citations):
Brown/Belden/Hudson-FrankCBrownCollectionNCFolklore3 142, "Old Woman All Skin and Bones" (4 texts plus 2 excerpts and mention of 3 more, all basically "Skin and Bones (The Skin and Bones Lady)," but the "B" text seems to have picked up a "Worms Crawl In" chorus)
Sandburg-TheAmericanSongbag, p. 444, "The Hearse Song" (2 texts, 1 tune, containing these lyrics but with particularizations regarding a military burial; the result would probably qualify as a separate song if better known)
Lomax/Lomax-AmericanBalladsAndFolkSongs, pp. 556-557, "The Hearse Song" (1 text, 1 tune)
Silber/Silber-FolksingersWordbook, p. 242, "The Hearse Song" (1 text)
Pankake/Pankake-PrairieHomeCompanionFolkSongBook, p. 124, "Did You Ever Think" (1 text)
Fuld-BookOfWorldFamousMusic, pp. 657-658+, "The Worms Crawl In (The Hearse Song)"
Baring-Gould-AnnotatedMotherGoose #92, pp. 86-88, "(There was a lady all skin and bone)" (contains this verse)
Ward-Jackson/Lucas-AirmansSongBook, pp. 62-63, "Heaven or Hell" (1 text, 1 tune)
NorthCarolinaFolkloreJournal, Gloria Dickens, "Childhood Songs from North Carolina" Vol. XXI, No. 1 (Apr 1973), p. 5, "Have you stopped to think when the hearse goes by" (1 text)
MidwestFolklore, Roger Abrahams, "Ghastly Commands: The Cruel Joke Revisited," Volume 11, Number 4 (Winter 1961) pp. 237-238, "(Did you ever think when the hearse goes by" (1 text)
LibraryThingCampSongsThread, post 52, "(Don't ever laugh as a Hearse goes by)" (1 text, from user 2wonderY, posted August 31, 2021)
Averill-CampSongsFolkSongs, pp. 103, 110, "The Hearse Song" (notes only)
DT, WORMSCRA
ADDITIONAL: League of American Wheelmen, "The L. A. W. Bulletin and Good Roads," Volume 22, No. 25, December 20, 1895 (available on Google Books with the title "Good Roads: Devoted to Construction and Maintenance of Roads and Streets · Volume 22), p. 11, "Do You Ever Think" (1 text)
ST San444 (Partial)
Roud #15546
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Alonzo the Brave and Fair Imogene" (lyrics)
cf. "The Hearse Song (II)" (lyrics, theme)
SAME TUNE:
The Scabs Crawl In (Greenway-AmericanFolksongsOfProtest, p. 13; on PeteSeeger30)
Rootie-Toot-Toot (Pankake/Pankake-PrairieHomeCompanionFolkSongBook, p. 76)
NOTES [497 words]: The Pankakes report that this has been attributed to the Crimean War. They do not cite a source for this information.
The key line, "The worms crawl out, the worms crawl in" appears as part of "Skin and Bones (The Skin and Bones Lady)" in the revised 1810 edition of Gammer Gurton's Garland, but it may have been an editorial insertion.
A similar lyric is found in the ballad of "Alonzo the Brave and Fair Imogene," but I don't know if that's a case of cross-dependence (let alone which way the dependence goes) or an independent evolution.
Charles Clay Doyle published a study of this, "'As the Hearse Goes By': The Modern Child's Memento Mori,' in Francis Edward Abernathy, ed., What's Going On? (In Modern Texas Folklore) (1976; the Doyle essay begins on p. 175). This documents the widespread nature of the song (without giving really detailed statistics about its distribution). It also compares it with a Middle English tradition of songs about bodily decay -- a comparison I find rather a stretch.
I once saw a claim this was written by Joseph Whiteford, Gregg Manfredi, Wes Planten. I doubt it.
John Patrick kindly found a great many instances of this song in early publications on Google Books. All of what follows is from sources he cited, and all can be found on Google Books. The earliest, from "Good Roads," is clearly this but also clearly not the way we usually hear it today:
Do You Ever Think?
Do you ever think as the hearse drives by
That it won't be long till you and I
Will both ride out in the big, plumed hack
And we'll never, never, never ride back?
Do you ever think as you strive for gold
That a dead man's hand can't a dollar hold?
We may tug and toil and pinch and save
And we'll lose it all when we reach the grave.
Do you ever think as you closely clasp
Your bag of gold with a firmer grasp,
If the hungry hears of the world were fed,
It my bring peace to your dying bed?
This version is anonymous, as are most that follow; it is one of many little verses scattered through the volumes of Good Roads. But once it had appeared, it gradually began to be reprinted. Charities: A Weekly Review of Local and General Philanthropy, Vol. IX. November 15, 1902. No. 20. p. 493, had the first two verses without a stanza break. The Inland Printer. Vol. XLVII. June, 1911. No. 3, p. 414, had the first two verses separated into stansas. The Typographical Journal, Volume XXVII. November, 1905. Number Five. p. 538, in "Correspondence" from Walter O'Day, had those two verses plus two more about supporting labor.
We finally find a reference to worms in "Recollections of the War in Europe, From June, 1917, to February, 1919" by Captain Louis Julian Genella, New Orleans Medical and Surgical Journal. Volume LXXI, June, 1919. No. 12, p. 510. But they aren't crawling yet; the first line of this part of the text runs "The maggots and worms shall cover your skins...." But from there it gradually drifted toward the version we usually use today.
Last updated in version 6.8
File: San444

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