Henry's Songbook

Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout -
She wouldn't take the garbage out
She'd wash the dishes and scrub the pans
And cook the yams and spice the hams
But though her parents would scream and shout
She wouldn't take the garbage out

So it piled up to the ceiling:
Coffee grounds, potato peelings
Brown bananas, rotten peas
Lumps of sour cottage cheese
Filled the can and covered the floor
And crapped the windows and blocked the door
With bacon rinds and chicken bones
And drippy ends of ice-cream cones
Pizza crusts and withered greens
Soggy beans and tangerines
Peach pips, prune pips, orange peel
Glumpy globs of cold oatmeal
Crusts of black burnt buttered toast
Grisly bits of beefy roast

The garbage rolled on down the hall
It raised the roof and broke the wall
With greasy napkins, cookie crumbs
Globs of gluey bubble gum
Cellophane from old balloni
Rubbery blubbery macaroni
Peanut butter caked and dried
Cuts of green and mouldy pie
Rotten melon skins and mustard
Egg shells mixed with lemon custard
Cold French fries, rancid meat
Yellow lumps of (ugh!) cream of wheat

At last the garbage reached so high
That finally it touched the sky
And none of her friends would come to play
And all the neighbours moved away
Finally Sarah Cynthia Stout said
O.k. - I'll take the garbage out

But then, of course it was too late
The garbage reached across the state
From New York to the Golden Gate
And there in the garbage she did hate
Poor Sarah met an awful fate
That I cannot right now relate
Because the hour is much too late

So, children, remember Sarah Stout -
And always take the garbage out

(as sung by Iain MacKintosh)