Grandma's Lye Soap

Last summer while Michael and I went on vacation in New York, a nice lady in a very nice hardware store sold us some Grandma's Lye Soap. She said she used it for washing her face (and she had very nice skin). We bought two cakes, and have been using it daily on our hands and faces ever since. The other day Michael put a cake of it in the kitchen, and, on a lark, I decided to use it to try to clean the grimy outside of our stainless steel tea kettle. The grime came off instantly (with the help of a scouring pad), and the thing looks like new.

I tried it on what I thought was a permanent stain on my yellow ceramic teapot, and the stain is now gone. Nothing else has ever worked. So what does this have to do with music, aside from keeping me from practicing (but you should see my kitchen!)? It turns out that Johnny Standley and Art Thorsen wrote a song about Grandma's Lye Soap. I know from practical experience that the secret is not in the scrubbing: it's in the soap!

Do you remember Grandma's Lye Soap,
Good for everything in the home,
And the secret was in the scrubbing,
It wouldn't suds, and wouldn't foam,

Oh, let us sing right out (sing out!)
For Grandma's Lye Soap,
Sing it out, all over the place!
For pots and pans, and dirty dishes,
And for your hands,
And for your face!

Little Therman, and Brother Herman,
Had an aversion to washing their ears...
Grandma scrubbed them with her lye soap,
And they haven't heard a word in years!

Oh, let us sing right out (sing out!)
For Grandma's Lye Soap,
Sing it out, all over the place!
For pots and pans, and dirty dishes,
And for your hands,
And for your face!

Mrs. O'Malley, out in the valley,
Suffered from ulcers, I understand,
She swallowed a cake of Grandma's Lye Soap,
Has the cleanest ulcers in the land!

Oh, let us sing right out (sing out!)
For Grandma's Lye Soap,
Sing it out, all over the place!
For pots and pans, and dirty dishes,
And for your hands,
And for your face!

Alternate Verse:

Mrs. O'Malley
Down in the valley
had a hound, I understand.
It swallowed a cake
Of Grandma's lye soap.
Now it's the cleanest hound in all the land

Oh, let us sing right out (sing out!)
For Grandma's Lye Soap,
Sing it out, all over the place!
For pots and pans, and dirty dishes,
And for your hands,
And for your face!

We're off to the hardware store to buy more of this magic soap.