An Apology From the Dunderbeck Sausage Company

Dunderbeck's Machine (a.k.a. "Denderbeck's Machine", "Dunderbeck's Terrible Mackine", "Johnnie Verbeck", "Mr. Johnny Trebeck" and more)

Personally, I like the first version of this website as it follows most closely with the version taught to me by my dearly departed Mum. Also, I tried the chords used with two of these versions on my six-string after I made my own version in the key of G Major, it all worked.

1. Dunderbeck's Machine (Oscar Brand)
INTRO: D Bdim7 A7 D [also used as a transition out of the chorus]

D A7 D
There was a man named Dunderbeck, invented a machine
D Em(E7) A7
For grinding things to sausage meat and it was run by steam.
G D G(Em) A7
Now kitchen cats & long-tailed rats will never more be seen.
D A7 D
They'll all be ground to sausage meat in Dunderbeck's machine.

CHORUS: [same chords]
Oh, Dunderbeck, oh, Dunderbeck, how could you be so mean?
For ever having invented the sausage meat machine!
Now kitchen cats & long-tailed rats will never more be seen.
They'll all be ground to sausage meat in Dunderbeck's machine.

One day a little boy walked into Dunderbecke's store.
A little piece of sausage meat was lying on the floor.
While the boy was waiting, he whistled up a tune.
The sausage meat got up and barked and ran around the room.

CHORUS:

One morning, something it went wrong; the machine, it wouldn't go.
So, Dunderbeck, he stepped inside, the reason for to know.
His wife, she had a nightmare; she was walking in her sleep.
She gave a yank and turned the crank and Dunderbeck was meat.

LINK

We hear you. You expected better from the Dunderbeck Sausage Company. From the moment our late founder invented his wonderful sausage meat machine, the Dunderbeck Sausage Company has had two goals: providing our customers and our community with bland sausages made from boring old pork, beef, and chicken, and, just as importantly, not providing our customers or our community with mouth-wateringly delicious sausages made from the plumpest, tastiest dogs, cats, and long-tailed rats in town.

We’ve know we’ve fallen short recently.

An Apology From the Dunderbeck Sausage Company

So, no one ever heard of this one then?

I asked two musician buddies yesterday if they heard of it, I even sang the chorus and they were, "Nope".

Someone needs to keep these old songs alive. My impression is this one is a pub song from the Victorian Industrial Era, likely from England. I will dig into this one more, but with zero responses in three forums and FB, I will publish the results of my research elsewhere.

All right, one more post from a simple search on the song's origins.

I've just now discovered that it is an old Ozark folk song. Here is what they have to say about it from one university collection . . .

Several songs that appear in the Ozark Folksong Collection depict ethnic, racial, and gender insensitivity that was once commonplace in American society. Such portrayals were wrong then and are wrong today.

LINK

I guess using the description of a "fat old Dutchman" is a racial slur.

The Dutch name Donderbeck is a pun, roughly translating as "Thunder Maw." The butcher, apparently, is a loud belcher.

It goes back at least to 1873 as a Yale College Song as recorded in the "Carmina Yalensia" publication.

"three years later was borrowed by vaudevillian Ed Harrigan for a textually unrelated comic stage song, "Dunderbeck."

This would have the earliest date of 1876 from a vaudeville act.

LINK