A silly, very strange song from 1947
Words and music by Dwight Latham and Moe Jaffe
The sheet music:
Accompaniment by James Pitt-Payne:
Lyrics
Many, many years ago when I was twenty-three
I was married to a widow who was pretty as could be.
This widow had a grown-up daughter who had hair of red.
My father fell in love with her and soon they too were wed.
Chorus
I’m my own grandpaw. I’m my own grandpaw.
It sounds funny I know, but it really is so.
Oh I’m my own grandpaw.
Verse 2
This made my dad my son-in-law and changed my very life.
For my daughter was my mother ‘cause she was my father’s wife.
To complicate the matter, even though it brought me joy,
I soon became the father of a bouncing baby boy.
Verse 3
My little baby then became a brother-in-law to dad,
And so became my uncle though it made me very sad.
For if he was my uncle then that also made him brother
Of the widow’s grown-up daughter, who, or course, was my step-mother.
Verse 4
Father’s wife then had a son who kept them on the run.
And he became my grandchild, for he was my daughter’s son.
My wife is now my mother’s mother, and it makes me blue.
Because. Although she is my wife, she’s my grandmother too.
Verse 5
Now if my wife is my grandmother, then I’m her grandchild.
And ev’ry time I think of it, I nearly drives me wild.
For now I have become the strangest case you ever saw.
As husband of my grandmother, I am my own grandpaw.
Sung by Laurence Rubenstein: