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Many, many years ago when I was twenty-three I was married to a widow who was pretty as could be This widow had a grown up daughter who had hair of red My father fell in love with her and soon they too were wed. This made my dad my son-in-law and changed my very life For my daughter was my mother 'cause she was my father's wife To complicate the matter even though it brought me joy I soon became the father of a bouncing baby boy. My little baby then became a brother-in-law to dad And so became my uncle though it made me very sad For if he was my uncle then that also made him brother, Of the widow's grown-up daughter who, of course, was my stepmother. Father's wife then had a son who kept them on the run And he became my grandchild for he was my daughter's son My wife is now my mother's mother and it makes me blue Because although she is my wife she's my grandmother too. If my wife is my grandmother then I'm her grandchild And every time I think of it, it nearly drives me wild For now I have become the stangest case you ever saw As husband of my grandmother I am my own grandpa. Chorus I'm my own grandpa I'm my own grandpa It sounds funny I know But it really is so Oh, I'm my own grandpa In the '30s, Latham had a group, the Jesters, on network radio; their specialties were bits of spoken humor and novelty songs. While reading a book of Mark Twain anecdotes, he once found a paragraph in which Twain proved it would be possible for a man to become his own grandfather. In 1947, Latham and Jaffe expanded the idea into a song, which became a hit for Lonzo and Oscar. It's also one of the songs on Michael Cooney's album of songs for children. The published words located and shown below do not exactly match those sung in the .wav file. grandpa.wav (388k). |