Date: Wed, 7 Apr 1999 16:47:35 -0500 (EST)
From: danceswithcarp <dcombs-AT-bloomington.in.us>
Subject: Re: Send a folksinger to the Balkans...




On Wed, 7 Apr 1999, Iain McKay wrote:

> As if they don't have enough problems...
> 
> :)
> 
> Iain : who actually likes some folk stuff (eg Phil Ochs).

I like a lot of 60s folk stuff and some of the 80s-90s stuff too. Did you
ever hear a song by Ochs about america's onliest person convicted of
cannibalism, Alferd Packer?  He lived in the 19th century.  "Duncan Hines"
at the end was one of our first mass-producers of ketchup.  And one of the
Colorado colleges has named their on-campus dining hall the "Alferd Packer
Dining Hall."  They used to have a food-eating holiday named after him
too.

carp


In the state of colorado
in the year of sevety-four
they crossed the san juan mountains
growing hungry to the core.
Their guide was alferd packer
and they trusted him too long
for his character was weak
and his appetite was strong

They called him a murderer, a cannibal, a thief
It just doesn't pay to eat anything but government-inspected beef.

Along the gunnison river
an indian camp they spied.
an indian chief approached them
to stop them he did try.
he warned them of the danger
in the snow that lay around
but the danger was in Packer
for his hunger knew no bound.

They called him a murderer, a cannibal, a thief;
it just doesn't pay to eat anything but Governmnet-inspected beef.

Well for nine long years he ran aay
but finally he was tried.
He claimed he didn't kill them
he only ate their hide.
That county had six dimmy-crats
until that man arrived,
well only one lives on today: 
he ate the other five

They called him a murderer, a cannibal, a thief;
It just doesn't pay to eat anything but government-inspected beef.

Eighteen years he stayed in jail,
it was a dreadful fate
for he suffered indigestion
every time he ate.
Still it's hard to blame this hungry guy
who went searchin' for the mines
for when he ate his friends
He'd never even heard
           of Duncan Hines.