As the Divine Doc M and I prepare to drive to Boston to experience Sir Paul McCartney in concert, I’m listening to all my favorite Beatle’s songs. One of their best is “Eleanor Rigby,” inspired by a no longer obscure name on a grave in Liverpool.
I can never hear the song without thinking of an obscure grave in West Oneonta, N.Y., where my paternal grandparents and other relatives are buried. Perhaps no one remembers the Butts or the Sitts families, and their real stories are long forgotten. But, like Eleanor Rigby, I think they should also be imortalized in song:
Miss Fanny Whiteman Fell for a charmer and married one Howard L. Butts. Then changed her name To Miss Fanny Butts. But she never liked all the winks about her large arse She called for no more.
All the sad arsed people Where do they get their names? All the sad arsed people. Where do they get their names?
Miss Lizzy Butts Fell for a bounder and ran off with Earl D. Sitts Became Betty Butts Sitts, Honeymooned in the Ritz Invited her sister, the shy and demure Hazel Butts To live in her house.
All the sad arsed people Where do they get their names? All the sad arsed people. Where do they get their names?
Old Howard Butts, Fanny Whiteman Butts and also Miz Betty Butts Sitts Snuggle Together In an untended grave With Earl D. Sitts and the unmarried Miss Hazel Butts, Sitting Forever.
All the sad arsed people Where do they get their names? All the sad arsed people. Where do they get their names?
Cakes and Ale 