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COPPER KETTLE

(learned from Charlie Brown Artman in the 1960s)

Get you a copper kettle,
Get you a copper coil,
Cover it over with corn mash,
And never more you'll toil.
    Just lie there 'neath the juniper,
    While the moon is bright,
    And watch the jugs a-fillin',
    In the pale moonlight.

Build you a fire of hickory,
Hickory, ash, or oak.
Don't use no green nor rotten wood,
They'll catch you by the smoke.
    Just lie there 'neath the juniper...

My granddaddy made whisky,
His granddaddy did too,
We ain't paid no whisky tax
Since seventeen ninety-two.
    Just lie there 'neath the juniper,
    While the moon is bright,
    And watch the jugs a-fillin',
    In the pale moonlight.

(from miriam berg's folksong collection)