"Grey Goose" is a traditional American folk song. Its subject is a preacher who hunts and captures a grey goose for dinner on a Sunday. He tries to kill the goose prior to eating it, but no matter how hard he tries, he cannot kill it, the implication being that he had not properly observed the Sabbath (however, there are other folk songs which may or may not have existed before this song that feature a Grey Goose, but not a preacher, that have a similar theme of the grey goose being indestructible). The various methods the preacher used to unsuccessfully kill the grey goose were, in order according to the song:
- Shooting it
- Boiling it
- Feeding it to a hog
- Cutting it with a mill-saw
It was recorded by Huddie Ledbetter (aka Lead Belly) in the 1930s. An instrumental version of this song was covered by members of the American band Nirvana and the Screaming Trees in Seattle in August 1989. The song was not released until 2004 on the box set titled With the Lights Out. In 2006, the children's music band Dan Zanes and Friends recorded a version of this song for the album Catch That Train. The song was also recorded by the band British Sea Power for one of the B-sides of their single "Please Stand Up". A poignant version of the song also was recorded by Sweet Honey in the Rock on the Grammy award winning album A Vision Shared produced by CBS as a tribute to Lead Belly (and Woody Guthrie) for Smithsonian Folkways.
Famous quotes containing the words grey and/or goose:
“Father Time is not always a hard parent, and, though he tarries for none of his children, often lays his hand lightly upon those who have used him well; making them old men and women inexorably enough, but leaving their hearts and spirits young and in full vigour. With such people the grey head is but the impression of the old fellow’s hand in giving them his blessing, and every wrinkle but a notch in the quiet calendar of a well- spent life.”
—Charles Dickens (1812–1870)
“This is the cat
That killed the rat”
—Mother Goose (fl. 17th–18th century. The House That Jack Built (l. 7–8)