In 1998 I was commissioned by Don Steele of the Boot Hill Repertory Company of Dodge City, Kansas, to come up with a musical/theatrical take on Dodge City's early history. This song, a warped valentine to the early days of Dodge, was one of the results. One of the characters in my Bosh and Moonshine musicals (the one that I play) is an undertaker named Mould. There was also another undertaker named Mould -- in Charles Dickens' MARTIN CHUZZLEWIT -- one of my favorite novels.

Once there was a feller named Charlie Rath
Who not so very long ago
Happened on a spot that weren't too hot
And commenced to shootin' buffalo
Not so far behind a feller named Hoover
Clumb from the primordoal ooze
He laid a board across two hobnail barrels
And made a fortune sellin' booze
Pretty soon lots of little bitty businesses
Spread from the spot like fleas
A couple of corrals and a flock o' nightowls
Feedin' fancy houses full o' chickadees

CHORUS

The "Bottom" in the third verse refers to Nick Bottom, a character in Shakespeare's A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM, who provides comic relief throughout the play, and is famously known for getting his head transformed into that of an ass by the elusive Puck within the play.

My name is Frederick Fosdick
I've royal blood in my veins
I've got my father's talents
My mother's looks and brains
Mama was heir to an empire
Castles by the dozens
But her dreams were disappointed
By a couple of bastard cousins

Once when I was a Red Clay Rambler we played a gig in Morden Manitoba. That night I was billeted at the home of a mortician. The first sentence I wrote in my journal the next morning was "I met a mortician from Morden, Manitoba". When I re-read this entry years later I knew it had to be a song.

I met a mortician from Morden Manitoba
And he made me want to be one too
A mortician, that is, not in Morden Manitoba
Though most any other place would do
He made a most momentous host one moist Memorial Day
That marvelous mortician from Morden Manitoba
Who made me want to be this way

Mayhap I'll meander back to Manitoba
Some moist Memorial Day
To that marvelous mortician from Morden Manitoba
Who made me want to be this way
That mythical and mystical And mephistophelistical
Mortician man from Morden Manitoba, CA

My name is Deadwood Dan
But I'm not such a terrible man
I know I've raised some hell
But it don't sit well
But now I want to change
I want to live free on the range
In a charming cottage with a welcome mat
And a parlor organ and a Siamese cat
Now tell me, good people
What you think about that?
Nuts -- it don't go with Deadwood Dan
He's still a terrible man!

From the 1850's through the 1880's, many unscrupulous real estate speculators and promotors acquired land west the Missouri River that seemed ideal for a future town, and sold it off as building lots. But the hopeful citizens who bought into these deals often arrived at their destination to discover only a wasteland. Many of these supposed towns were advertised as luxurious communities where residents could live cultured and carefree lives in elegant and vernal splendor.

I read about it in a fancy brochure that came one day thru the mail
The prettiest little town you'd ever seen with two acre parcels for sale
It showed citizens strollin' down a main street in top hats & calico
"Greetings," it said in gingerbread, "from Summerville, Colorado"

One night in Drury Lane, in the fifth act of HAMLET
I was just about "to be or not to be"
When I heard a stage whisper from Gertrude, in the wings
And these were the very words she said to me:

Once I was callow
Drifting along the stream
My fields were fallow
'Til you came along like it seemed
You were high, wide, and handsome
Riding that Guernsy cow
So I took up farming
Though I didn't know my butt from a two horse plow
And how we struggled
Through ev'ry foolish scheme
But oh how we snuggled
It was never less than fun
and I thought you were the one
But oh what a golden dream

Ladies love strength, ladies love height
Ladies like a man with a little fight
One who'll stand when duty calls
And if you'll pardon my expression, ma'm
Ladies love balls

Sarah Bernhardt was arguably the greatest actress of the 19th century, and she toured America many times during her career.

I met her at the stage door
At Walnut and old Broadway
She was playing CAMILLE
And the old playbill
Said she'd soon be on her way
I asked her for her autograph
She sweetly said "mais oui!"
And the world stood still in Louisville
The night I met Miss B.

She was the dame of camellias
Not azaleas, not abelias
She was the dame of camellias
She was the sweetheart of gay Paree
They say Cornelius Vanderbilt came to every show
He cried through every scene
You shoulda heard him blow
That little gal she broke the hearts of Europe's howling swells
Including Victor Hugo and his pal the Prince of Wales

She was the dame of camellias (yes)
Not azaleas (no)
Not abelias (what?)
She was the dame of camellias (who?)
She was the sweetheart of gay Paree
She was the sweetheart of gay Paree

This song was inspired in part by Shawn Werner's piece in DEADWOOD MAGAZINE about the notorious Al Swearengen

Where did she come from where did she go
Under the green corn moon
Who will remember Mary Bright
The girl in the Gem Saloon

He promised her fame without a price
Under the green corn moon
A one way ticket to paradise
The girl in the Gem Saloon

In a palace on a bed
Snowflakes falling in her head
Laudanum, laudanum

He was always known as the undertaker's friend
He'd pick 'em off neat and clean
With a single shot through the middle of the head
Not the nose or the gizzard or the spleen
(Not the nose of the gizzard or the spleen)

When it's rhubarb time in Orangeville
I'll be thinking dear of you
In the golden light of morning
We'd pull rhubarb in the dew

There's a ghost in the theatre
On stormy nights she lingers
Clinging to the curtains
Catsup on her fingers

They used to stuff people back in old Cairo
And put them in pyramids just for the show
I guess it's all right if you've got the room
But there's nothing like pyramids for pure t gloom

If I stuffed my loved ones I'd keep them on the porch
Decorously draped and lit by a torch
Twould keep away in-laws, and salesmen and thieves
Just three of the benefits stuffing achieves

Or maybe I'd keep them in the old trophy hall
With the stag and the moose and the bobcat and all
I'd point out my fav'rites like dear Uncle Paul
And there's my sweet grandmother's head on the wall
I wish that I could have got all of her back
But she got drunk one night and fell asleep on the track
It's a hell of a place for a wee bivouac
Stuffed porkchops, stuffed peppers, stuffed people

Stuffed aunts and stuffed uncles
Stuffed pants and carbuncles
Stuffed porkchops, stuffed peppers, stuffed people