I'm My Own Grandpa (the song...)

Don't bother asking -- it's too complicated to attempt to explain, and honestly, I don't know that I can even wrap my mind around the logistics of it, but we had to look up the lyrics to the song and then we thought it best to have the visual aid of the written lyrics and the flow chart....

let's just leave it as we have some interesting neighbors on this dead-end road here. (click on the song title below to go to the page with the graphics that put it all together for those who are more visual...)

I'm My Own Grandpaw
by Dwight Latham and Moe Jaffe

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 396518 bytes

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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
To the widow's grown-up daughter, who, of course, was my step-mother.

My father's wife then had a son who kept them on the run
And he became my grand-child, 'cause 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 am her grandchild
And every time I think of it, it nearly drives me wild
For now I have become the strangest case you ever saw
(This has got to be the strangest thing I ever saw)
As husband of my grandmother, I am my own grandpaw.

Chorus
I'm my own grandpaw
I'm my own grandpaw
It sounds funny I know
but it really is so
Oh, I'm my own grandpaw.