Boring for Oil

Another euphemistic ballad, probably of American origin.  According to Guy Logsdon, "This song may be the oldest bawdy oil occupation in tradition."  Few texts have been recovered, however, and the ballad seems to have slipped from oral currency in recent years.  

[ A ]

One morning I rambled. I met a fair maid
So handsome and lovely.  To her I did say.
"For a very large fortune I'm willing to toil,
If you'll show me the place to go boring for oil."

This fair maid she stammered, "Young man, I declare!
I know well that place and I've watched it with care.
And no one has seen it since I was a child.
And if you will go there, you will surely strike oil."

Then says I to myself, "Then my fortune is made.
If she'll show me that place now, I'll see you well paid."
She heisted her garments to give me my start
And she showed me the place to go boring for oil.

Oh, I kissed that fair damsel a hundred times o'er,
And I made her be seated on Niagara's green shore.
She screamed and she hollered, "My bunghole will start.
You've busted my bladder a boring for oil."

[ B ]

As I walked out one morning in May,
I met a fair damsel and to her did say,
"It's all for a fortune I am willing to toil
If you'll show me some place to go boring for oil."

She stammered, she stammered, "Kind sir, I declare
I know of a place and I've nursed it with care.
And no one has seen it since I was a child,
And I'll show you there's no trouble in boring for oil."

Oh, I had not bored down more than six inches or so,
When the oil from my well, it so freely did flow.
She screamed and she hollered, "Oh! my character's spoiled!
You've busted my hamgut while boring for oil."

There are two versions of this infrequently collected ballad in the Archive of American Folk Song.  The "A" text here, partially reprinted in Peters, Wisconsin, p. 263,  was sung to a set of "The Wagoner's Lad" by Lewis Winfield Moody, 75, a lumberjack of Plainfield, Wisconsin.  Recorded on AFS 4169 by Robert Draves, it was deposited in the Archive of American Folk Song by Helene Stratman-Thomas.  
A tape of the Stratman-Draves bawdy material was furnished by James P. Leary of Mt. Horeb, Wisconsin.
Mr. Moody's tune bears a number of songs, including "The Wagoner's Lad" in Larkin, Singing Cowboy, p. 11; Sharp-Karpeles II, p. 3, "Married and Single Life"; Emma Dusenberry's version of "A Rich Irish Lady"; "Naavy Boots" in Palmer, p. 6.; and "Farewell to Tarwathie" in MacColl-Seeger, XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX [Biblio cite to come] 
The "B" text was sung by R. M. Davids of Cross X ranch, Woodmere, Florida, about 1924 and sent to Robert W. Gordon by the redoubtable collector Joanna Colcord.  Gordon eventually donated it, with many of his other papers, to the Library of Congress' Archive of American Folksong. 
Randolph, Roll Me in Your Arms: Unprintable Ozark Folksongs and Folklore, Vol. I (Fayetteville, University of Arkansas Press, 1992), pp. 58-60, prints four partial texts and a melody.  Annotator G. Legman offers sources for other versions.  
See also	Logsdon, The Whorehouse Bells Were Ringing (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 199), pp. 160-62.