The Hearse Song B
Channel: Stephen Griffith
Date: 18/12/2020

Day 275 of the American Songbag Stay-at-Home Series

Casualty records of the world war indicated in round numbers ten million dead and twenty million crippled. The Hearse Song was popular in all branches of service, though in the aviation corps it had more variants. The version is from Jake Zeitlin of Los Angeles and Fort Worth. 

The key line, "The worms crawl out, the worms crawl in" appears as part of "Skin and Bones (The Skin and Bones Lady)" in the revised 1810 edition of Gammer Gurton's Garland, but it may have been an editorial insertion.