Folk singer Phil Ochs’ first album was 1964’s All the News that’s Fit to Sing. Only it wasn’t.

Sometime in the next few months we’re going to sail unknowing past the 50th anniversary of the recording of Ochs’ real first album, a record he appeared on anonymously and kept secret until his death. Released in 1963 — nobody knows when in 1963 — under the name of a non-existent band called The Campers, “Camp Favorites” was a cheap quickie album of kids’ camp songs that Ochs recorded for hire with a (still anonymous) female singer, a banjo player, and a small kids’ chorus.

Ochs biographer David Cohen first stumbled across the existence of the album in 1998, and wasn’t able to actually confirm its existence until two years later. If you’re an Ochs fan it’s a great story, told in full here. And now that it’s 2012, most of the tracks on the album are up on YouTube.

Which brings me to this next bit.

Cannibal King is a camp song I’d never heard of before, though Googling shows that it’s still kind of popular. It can be found in a variety of different versions in a variety of different places online, but here are the lyrics from the Ochs version:

A cannibal king with a brass nose ring fell in love with a beautiful maid
And every night by the pale moonlight across the lake he came
Oh a hug and a kiss for the Zulu miss in the shade of the old palm tree
Every time they met they sang a duet and it sounded like this to me…

Kiss kiss … kiss kiss … kiss kiss dah dee dah doh-oh-oh
Kiss kiss … kiss kiss … because he loved her so

Now a guy named Jim who was mighty thin fell in love with a stout young maid
Each afternoon they’d sit and spoon when nobody else was home
Oh a hug and a kiss for the sweet young miss in the shade of the old pine tree
Every time they’d meet it was oh so sweet and it sounded like this to me…

Kiss kiss … kiss kiss … kiss kiss dah dee dah doh-oh-oh
Kiss kiss … kiss kiss … because he loved her so

Oh a Congo chief who had false teeth fell in love with a Congo maid
And every dawn just as sure as you’re born he’d stop to say hello
Oh a hug and a kiss for the Congo miss in the shade of the yum-yum tree
Every time he came it was just the same and it sounded like this to me…

Kiss kiss … kiss kiss … kiss kiss dah dee dah doh-oh-oh
Kiss kiss … kiss kiss … because he loved her so

An Indian brave began to rave when he saw an Indian miss
He built a new canoe for two and paddled her every night
Oh a hug and a kiss for the Indian miss as they sailed across the sea
They both got wet but they sang a duet and it sounded like this to me…

Kiss kiss … kiss kiss … kiss kiss dah dee dah doh-oh-oh
Kiss kiss … kiss kiss … because he loved her so.

Ah, 1960s kid culture. Not hard to see why Phil didn’t tend to brag about it.