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utah phillips - moose turd pie lyrics

went down and got a job with the rural electrification in the navajo indian reservation… running electric power lines into all the navajo outhouses. i was one of the first people to wire ahead for a reservation

finally, i… i’ll tell you about the worst job i ever had in my life. worst job i ever had in my life was working for the… for the uhh… was it the santa fe?… yeah, it was the santa fe rail road south of las vegas, nevada. that’s the old mormon muddy mission you see, way out in what the navajos called the “boonies”, out in the desert. now, the job was gandy-dancing. now, gandy-dancing used to be in the old days. gandy-dancing was… uh, when the irish were building the rail road. of course, the first transcontinental rail road was built by irish laborers, and they used these long handled shovels called uh, “irish banjos” that were made by the gandy shovel company of chicago. now, the irish laborer would take the wide end of the shovel (when he could find it), and he would jam it in under the rail or a tie, and he would climb out on the long handle…do a little jig step out there. and they would lever the tie up and the rail up they’d push gravel up underneath it, and tamp it down; and that levels the road bed. see, that’s what gandy-dancing is…leveling the road bed, so the d-mn train didn’t fall off as it goes by…which is just a big drag for everybody
now, they don’t do gandy-dancing in the normal way anymore, see, uh, like they did in the old days. nowadays they run three cars out on the line. they run a box car out there that’s a bunk car; you sleep in it, and it’s got bunks that are eighteen inches apart. then you got a tool car with your tamping irons, your tongs, your double jack hammers, and your spikes, and all of the equipment, see, to do the job. and then you got a cook car. there’s no restaurants anyplace around, so you got a cook car: pots and pans, a coal or wood burning stove, and a long table down the middle to eat at. only thing they don’t hire is a cook. that’s because they’re cheap; saves them money. the rule is, that in the crew they’re supposed to pick among their own members, who’s going to be the cook. now, they don’t try to do it sensibly, like draw lots or decide who the best cook is. what they do is they wait to find out who b-tches and whines and p-sses and moans the most about the cooking, and they say “alright wise-guy, you think you can do better, you get to be the cook”. well, that was me, see! ol’ alligator mouth, the new man on the crew; and that was the worst food i’d ever had. i mean it was… dog bottom pie and pheasant sweat. and otter water, comes out of an otter; terrible terrible stuff. some people think that’s a delicacy, but i thought it was garb. so i complained, so they said “alright, wiseguy, you get to be the cook”. that made me mad! ’cause i didn’t want to cook, but i knew if anybody complained about my cooking, that they were going to have to cook

armed with that knowledge, i sallied forth over the muddy river. i was walking around among the sheet gr-ss and the bunch gr-ss, and i looked down, and there was just a h-ll of a big moose t-rd. biggest d-mn moose t-rd; that was a real steamer! i looked down at that meadow wafer, and i said to myself “self, i’m gonna bake up a big moose t-rd pie.” ’cause if anybody complains about my cookin’, they’re gonna have to cook. so i tipped that pasture pastry up on edge. i got my sh-t together, so to speak. and i started rolling it down towards the old cook car
baluump! baluump!
i got it down there and leaned it up against the side, and i climbed up in the cook car, and i baked up a h-ll of a big pie sh-ll. and i baked that moose t-rd in as sl!ck as you please. and i cribbed the edges with my thumbs, and laid strips of dough across it, & garnished it with a sprig of parsley, a little paprika. it was beautiful; poetry on a plate. and i served it up for dessert, waiting for the first hint of a complaint. well, this giant dude comes in, about 5 foot 40; i mean he was big. throwed himself down like a fool on a stool. picked up his fork. took a big bite of that moose t-rd pie. well, he threw down his fork, and he let out a bellow, and he yelled…
“my god! that’s moose t-rd pie! …it’s good, though!”

- utah phillips lyrics

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