Songs of the Pogo

A friend gave me an old 78 (he had two copies) featuring 3 songs from the 1956 album Songs of the Pogo; Don't Sugar Me, Lines Upon a Tranquil Brow, and Go Go Pogo. Don't Sugar Me has vocal by Fia Karin, the others by himself, Walt Kelly.

How to describe the voice of the satirist/cartoonist. Lets see -- take equal parts of the voice of hipster comedian Lord Buckley, Tom Wait's growl, and Harmonica Frank Floyd's nasal howl and you have Walt Kelly's Go Go Pogo. He snarls, snorts, yodels, and testifies like a cornpone medicine show auctioneer, a backwoods preacher, or a beat poet on bad bennies backed by an orchestral jazz band. Dig these crazy lyrics sung at tongue-twisting breakneck speed:

Wheeling, West Virginia

With ev'rything that's in ya

Down the line You'll see the shine

From Oregon to Caroline,

Oh, eenie meenie minie Kokomo go Pogo

Tishimingo, sing those lingo

whistling go

Shamokin to Hoboken

Chenango to Chicango

It's golly

I go goo goo goin' go go Pogo!