Yodeling Goats Drive Big Box Bookstore Into Bankruptcy

Years ago, my friend Eileen Rowan and I worked together at the same Borders, and somehow we got onto the topic of the yodeling goatherd song from The Sound of Music. We noodled together a goofy poem about yodeling goats. We didn't finish it, and I stuck it into a file and forgot it.

Then recently I was putting together a little display at the Heard Museum book store for a classic kid's book titled, The Goat in the Rug. I thought of our poem and dug it up. It only needed a couple of lines to be complete. So here it is, the yodeling goat song, written by two miscreants on a slow night at Borders:

The Yodeling Goat Song

This is the song of the yodeling goats

They never eat books but they eat lots of oats

They live in a castle surrounded by moats

Those dawdling, oat-eating, yodeling goats.

Sing yodely-ohdely-dohdely-doo

If you think they’re funny, then I think so too

Sing Yodely-ohdely-dohdely-day

They moved in last week and it looks like they’ll stay

The yodeling goats, the yodeling goats

They like to eat fish, so they have shiny coats

They read magazines and sport colorful totes

Those oft-toting, fish-eating, yodeling goats

Sing yodely-ohdely-dohdely-dorm

Don't buy them a jacket, 'cause they're always warm

Sing yodely-ohdely-dohdely-day

They ring all the doorbells and then run away

The yodeling goats, the yodeling goats

They don’t give a fig for the DOs and the DON’Ts

They don't cross their Ts and they don't mark their quotes

Those fig-tossing, mis-quoting yodeling goats

Sing yodely-ohdely-dohdely, please

Let's run in the meadows and climb all the trees!

Sing yodely-ohdely-dohdely-dug

There's a goat in the pen and a goat in the rug

The yodeling goats, they have golden throats

And sing acapella, they know all the notes

They tap dance all summer, then drink root beer floats

Those tippy-tap, rooty-beer, golden throat goats

Sing yodley-ohdely-dohdely-dend

This yodeling goat song, will it never end?

Sing yodely-ohdely-dohdely-dain

Come back here next week and we'll sing it again!