Awful Hungry Hash House

(album: High Wide & Handsome: The Charlie Poole Project - 2009)

Keep on the sunny side, always on the sunny side
Keep on the sunny side of life
It will help us on our way, it will brighten all our days
If we keep on the sunny side of life

There's a hotel in this town of dubious renown
Where they serve the hash up on the second floor
There's a graveyard in the cellar, doctor's office in the parlor
And the undertaker's got his shop next door

I'm a boarder and I dwell in that second class hotel
And the way they run their business isn't fair
'Cause I'm stuck here on my bunk and I cannot get my trunk
And the rent I owe would break a millionaire

Touch me not is on the teacups, skeleton crossbones on the plates
Warning, poison's on the menu every day
Oh, the biscuits they are named and I'm going to have them framed
At that awful hungry hash house where I stay

Oh, the doughnuts, they are wooden and we have Limburger pudding
We kneel in prayer before we go to grub
If you chance to get a breeze of that hambalonia cheese
You'd have swore somebody'd hit you with a club

The sausage they are marked, if you touch them they will bark
They are relics sent from Bingen on the Rhine
And the boarders have the croup from drinking frozen soup
At that awful hungry hash house where I dine

And I'm never fully rested 'cause the room I rent's infested
And the critters all have nested in my clothes
And the fleas, they hold me down while the chinches creep around
And the bedbugs play pinochle on my nose

They have India rubber pickles, extra sizes for the cripples
And a dinner bell and gong they can't afford
When they open up the gate we come rolling in on skates
At that awful hungry hash house where I board

There's a woman called the Duchess, brings the coffee in on crutches
And the cake looks like a sponge that's petrified
The pies are old and gray and they're only in the way
At that awful hungry hash house where I bide

Oh, the beefsteak it was rare and the butter had red hair
Baby had its feet both in the soup
The eggs they would not match and if you touched one it would hatch
And double back for safety in the coop, get on home, boy

It will help us on our way, it will brighten all our days
If we keep on the sunny side of life