Who exactly is going down the drain where you hear the sound “Glug Glug Glug”?
Back in scouts there were a ton of campfire songs, and for the longest of times all I could remember of this specific one was “Anna May? Anna May?”. Upon googling to find out what’s going on with this the results weren’t that helpful at all.
I ended up coming across Sing Along! Annie Mae, Chug a Wump, and Fried Ham which was kind enough to provide both audio and lyrics that were a good start of this:
Annie Mae, where are you going? Upstairs to take a bath. Annie Mae with legs like toothpicks, And a neck like a giraffe. Annie Mae stepped in the bathtub, Annie Mae pulled out the plug, Oh my goodness, Oh my soul, There goes Annie Mae down that hole! Annie Mae, Annie Mae, glub, glub, glub
This sounded pretty close to what I originally remembered, and the audio was pretty cool, too. With the updated lyrics I googled to see if I could find a better rendition of this audio and came across a moderately confusing yet admirable adaptation from songlyrics.com:
Ellie Mae, where are you going? Upstairs to take a bath. Her legs are like two toothpicks, Her neck like a giraffe! Ellie Mae stepped in the water, To pull the stopper out, Oh my goodness, Oh my soul! There goes Ellie Mae Down that hole! Ellie Mae? Ellie Mae? Blub, Blub, Blub!
From Annie May to Ellie May, and from glub to blub. Woo, this is getting interesting!
More googling we found a third rendition from bussongs.com where they called this “Glug Glug Glug”:
"Eleanor, where are you going?" "Upstairs to take a bath". Eleanor, with legs like toothpicks; and a neck like a giraffe. Eleanor got in the bathtub; Eleanor pulled out the plug. Oh my goodness! O my soul! There goes Eleanor down the hole! Glug! Glug! Glug!
From Annie May to Ellie May to Eleanor, and from glub to blub to Glug.
Finding a 4th iteration didn’t seem to be that difficult as I cross into lyrics-24.com with “Alice where are you going?”:
Alice where are you going? Upstairs to take a bath. Alice, with legs like toothpicks And a neck like a girraffe. Alice where are you going? Glug Glug Glug Alice stepped in the bathtub Pulled out the plug and then. Oh my goodness, bless my soul, There goes Alice down the hole! Alice where are you going? Glug Glug Glug
Annie May->Ellie May->Eleanor->Alice, and now we’re going from “O my soul” to “bless my soul!”. There is even a very energetic youtube rendition:
In that case, bless all their hearts.
In summary, thinking about old camping songs and seeing that there were probably a billion other differences between them all doesn’t matter. What really mattered is that this was one of the many songs that brought many people together, singing and cheering and smiling, and that’s all that’s really important to life.