Maggie's Farm

The great African-American comedian Godfrey Cambridge had a similar joke:

Why, Lord?
You jet back and forth across country,
You lose wherever you're going, you know?
And the best way of expressing that to me is a joke.
Now I don't tell many of them,
But it has to do with this fella standing on the corner,
A colored fella.
I always stick to race.
And he's standing on the corner
And he looks up
And he says,
"Lord!"
He's on a personal basis.
He says,
"Lord!
Why did you make me so dark?"
And the Lord says,
"My boy"-
And he was wrong from the get-go, y'know.
He says,
"My boy,"
He says,
"The reason I made you so dark
Is that when you're running through the jungle,
The sun would not give you sunstroke."
He says,
"Yeah.
Yeah, I go for that."
He says,
"Lord!
Why did you make my hair so coarse?"
He said,
"Well, the reason I did that, my boy,
Is so that when you're running through the jungle
In quest of the wild beast
And the water buffalo and the lion,
Your hair would not get caught in the brambles."
He said,
"Yeah, yeah."
He said,
"Lord,
Why did you make my legs so long?"
He said,
"The reason I made your legs long, my son,
Is so that when you're loping through the jungle
In quest of the wild beast and the rhinoceros
And the bull and the elephant,
You would run very fast and swiftly."
He said,
"My son,
Do you have any further questions?"
He said,
"Yeah, Lord!
What the hell am I doin' here
In Cleveland!"