by Leo Israel
Paul Bunyan
Language: English
Out of the North Paul Bunyan blew, Riding a nine-day blizzard through, Carrying an ox the color of blue, Lumberman just lookin' for some work to do. Blizzard ended and he gazed around, from the State of Maine to Puget Sound, said, "Boys now look at the job I've found gonna trim the whole U.S. A. right down to the ground!" Trees started fallin', the ox started haulin', They chopped and piled the logs up ten miles tall. Gouged out the prairie and poured the Great Lakes in to float them all. And the ox roared, "Bunyan! Paul Bunyan!!!" And once it rained from a cloud in the sky, Forty days and nights went by, the shanty boys began to sigh They were twenty-one feet under water come the Fourth of July Paul heard them complainin', said, "I'll stop that rainin'," Swam up the water spout to the middle of the air, Plugged up the spigot and rode the last drop down to the Courthouse Square, And the crowd yelled, "Bunyan! Speech! Paul Bunyan!!!" On Corkscrew River he met his fate where the water ran crooked and the shores ran straight, and the trees unwound at half-past eight, They'd cut the last tree in Oregon State, they were making flapjacks to celebrate, the batter was ready bu the little ox ate the red-hot cookstove! "Bunyan! Hooray! Bunyan!"
Authorship:
Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):
- by Elie Siegmeister (1909 - 1991), "Paul Bunyan", published 1947, copyright © 1941. [text verified 1 time]
Researcher for this page: Leonard Lehrman
This text was added to the website: 2010-01-12
Line count: 31
Word count: 227