As my Aunt Olive reminded me when I called her this week and thanked her for giving me Popular Songs of Nineteenth-Century America back in 1977, today’s song was one that my Grandfather Lightfoot enjoyed singing quite a bit.
She also reminded me that goober peas, known to us today as peanuts, were fairly plentiful, comparatively, in the war-torn South during the Civil War, and so were a welcome addition to the diet, whenever anyone could get them.
Sitting by the roadside on a summer day,
Chatting with my messmates passing time away,
Lying in the shadow underneath the trees,
Goodness how delicious, eating goober peas!
Chorus
Peas! Peas! Peas! Peas! eating goober peas!
Goodness how delicious, eating goober peas!
Peas! Peas! Peas! Peas! eating goober peas!
Goodness how delicious, eating goober peas!
When a horseman passes, the solders have a rul,
To cry out at their loudest “Mister here’s your mule,”
But another pleasure enchanting-er than these,
Is wearing out your Grinders, eating goober peas!
Chorus
Just before the battle the General hears a row,
He says “the Yanks are coming, I hear their rifles now,
He turns around in wonder, and what do you think he sees
The Georgia Militia, eating goober peas!\
Chorus
I think my song has lasted almost long enough,
The subject’s interesting, but rhymes are mighty rough,
I wish this war was over when free from rags and fleas,
We’d kiss our wives and sweethearts and gobble goober peas!
Chorus
