Mactavish is Dead and His Brother Don't Know It

[sm4him]

Anyone remember that little song? My father used to wander around the house singing it. My father was an odd, odd man.
It went like this:
Mactavish is dead and his brother don't know it,
his brother is dead and Mactavish don't know it.
They're both of them dead in the very same bed,
And neither one knows the other one's dead.

That's what THIS bizarre little story from my neck of the woods made me think of.

How in the world could it possibly have taken 2-1/2 YEARS for someone to finally go into that house?? That's just crazy.

 

[KenC]

No, never heard it. Talk about odd, there are several people in my wife's family who occasionally will sing a few lines from an old song that seems relevant to what's going on, but I never heard this one. It may be a regional thing.

As for the 2 1/2 years, around here someone would have broken in long before then.

 

[hamlet]

We get that here all the time. People just keep to themselves and the government is so backed up with cases that it takes a long time for anyone to do anything really.

 

[sm4him]

Ha, I forgot I'd even posted this! But it seems worth a little BUMP this morning...

 

[snowbear115 47]

You'd have thought the smell would have attracted attention, especially in the summer.

 

[snowbear115 47]

And, no, I've never heard of the song.

 

[sm4him]

This is a terrible video, but it's the only one I can find that at least gives a decent idea of what the song sounds like. It's sung to what is supposedly an old Irish tune called the The Irish Washerwoman. He uses very slightly different words toward the end than my dad did.