Well, call it what you will. But the look I got was, "Well, look at the Village idiot." I made some ribs for dinner, and afterward, my wife decided to pack some up to take to work tonight. As she was trying to fit four ribs, energetically, into a three-rib size container, I spontaneously broke into a chorus of "Geordie lost his penker."

Now, for those who don't know, it's a song from Tyneside in England, and it's in dialect. What? You say.But Lou, when you were singing, you were a "Blueser" and sang blues and dirty songs.

Of course, you are right, I was a blueser, and sang many a salacious ditty too. But one night in a bar in Western Massachusetts, I ran into a singer from England. After a couple of drinks, he taught me the basics of this song - "Geordie lost his penker." So two nights in a row, we got up on stage between his set and my set, and belted out this ditty. What was my contribution to it? I taught him how to sing it as though it were an obscene ditty by putting emphasis, pauses, and innuendo into it. Most who heard it from us assumed we were singing an obscene British folk song and laughed at our absurd gestures and faces. We had a great time.

Now, just a bit of explanation. A penker is a marble, a double raw in a double row of houses, a Koondy is a sewer, a claes prop is a clothes line pole, and goon pooda is gun powder. OK. So here is Geordie lost his penker:


Hey, wor Geordie's lost 'is penker(marble)
Hey, wor Geordie's lost 'is penker
Hey, wor Geordie's lost 'is penker
Doon the double raw(double row of houses)

Well, it ralled reet doon the koondy
Well, it ralled reet doon the koondy

Soo he's gone ta fetch a claes prop
Soo he's gone ta fetch a claes prop

And he rammed it up the koondy
And he rammed it up the koondy
But the claes prop would na' fetch it
But the claes prop would na' fetch it
Doon the double raw

So he's gone ta fetch a terrier
So he's gone ta fetch a terrier
And he shooved it up the koondy
And he shooved it up the koondy
But the terrier wad nae fetch it
But the terrier wad nae fetch it
Doon the double raw

So he's gone ta get goon pooda
o he's gone ta get goon pooda
Doon the double raw

And he poured it up the koondy
And he poured it up the koondy
Then he set fire to the pooda
And he's blon the double raw

Hey, wor Geordie's foond 'is penker
Hey, wor Geordie's foond 'is penker

It was in his bloody pooket
It was in his bloody pooket
It was in his bloody pooket
And he's blon the double raw

So my family thinks that now that I am speaking in tongues, perhaps I should be committed. Also, my wife took some exception to the ferocity of my gestures and emphasis every time I said that Geordie rammed it up the koondy.

Not everyone appreciated Folk Music. To those who know more about the traditional music of the British Isles, my apologies. I reconstituted some from scribbled notes I found in my pile of old music.

See, never expect the conventional!