I'm Gonna Be Sick (Granny Granny)

They say that you should write about what you know, but they’re wrong. For instance, Olde Foz is not well-schooled on the topic of religion, but I think we can all agree that Cheeze Jesus, Whiskey What Done It, and Dinosaur on the Ark are three of the most valuable religious tracts ever created by a modern, English-speaking piano player. Similarly, I have personal experience with only half of the topics covered by With Drunk Astronauts, yet we play that song with a full-throated enthusiasm that normally requires a lot of expertise.

On the other hand, if you want to hear a song about panicky-retching-helpless sickness, and down homey Grandmotherly health care, we definitely have something to say on the subject. Consider I’m Gonna Be Sick (Granny Granny), an old Chuxx yarn that I learned in the cradle, and one FtH still likes to perform at Cole’s. The lyrics, which were originally discovered by WPA researchers during the 1930s, but which probably date from Elizabethan England, were adapted to the traditional style of 1980s Suburban Kansas City Folk Punk.

In the original dialect they read:

I’m gonna be sick, Granny Granny…

Where is the pail, Granny Granny…

It’s too late, Granny Granny…

[Bridge]

I feel better, Granny Granny…

I’m gonna be sick, Granny Granny….

[The song ends with the whole audience retching into tin buckets].

It is a hard song to perform because we don’t have that many buckets.

Anyway, join us tonight at Cole’s and we will all be helplessly, hopelessly sick. Sound fun?