My Own Grandpa
(with comments)

I just heard Willie Nelson's version of I'm My Own Grandpa. I've heard the song before, but I never really thought about it. Here's a link to the lyrics and a little background: I'm My Own Grandpa.

"I'm My Own Grandpa" was recorded by many artists, including Lonzo and Oscar, Homer and Jethro, and Ray Stevens. Willie Nelson sang it on his album Rainbow Connection. The all-female bluegrass band Sidesaddle turned it into "I'm My Own Grandma" on their album Girl From The Red Rose Saloon.

One theory floating around the Web is that the song was inspired by an anecdote that Mark Twain told in a book. Another theory is that the words came from a Mark Twain lecture, not one of his books. Nobody that I know of has attached any proof to either idea, which is not unusual, considering that a lot of stuff has been attributed to Mark Twain that he neither said nor wrote.

A Web-based genealogist traced the lineage of the song back to poems that appeared in books published in 1919 and 1910. Looking further she found it in an 1893 newspaper article about a man who had committed suicide. The man, William Harmen, of Titusville, Pennsylvania, was reported to have taken his own life in a fit of despondency because he believed he was his own grandfather.