I found it! 1865, by Septimus Winner, "the Song of Jokes" incorporates a number of popular or well-known songs of his day (including at least one of his own), in a run-on way, where one stops as another picks up the thread. It reminds me of the "Billboard Song," where various levels of posted adverts get revealed as rain washes away the paste that held them.

Anyway, if any of you can sing this all the way through, you're a better man than I am, Gunga Din!



The Song of Jokes

As I walked thro' the town one pleasant night in spring,
I stood 'neath the windows to hear the girls sing;

Oh where, and oh where has my highland laddie gone

He's gone he's gone, as meek as any lamb,
They took him, yes they took him to the arms of Abraham;

Away, away, away down south in Dixie,

Where the troop are the first I ever did see,
And the captain with his whiskers, took a sly glance at

Johnie Schmoker, Johnnie Schmoker he sips beer, he sips beer,
Hub a dub a dub das ish my drum
Hub a dub a dub das ish my drum, el.

Oh, I heard the drum beat and the music so sweet,
But my eyes at the time caught a much better treat,

For gay and happy, gay and happy,
We'll be gay and happy still,

Glory, glory, hallelujah
As we go marching on.

Oh Sallie come up,
Sallie come down,
Sallie come down to

Maryland, my Maryland,
Maryland, my Maryland:

For has thou no feeling
To see me kneeling wish

No one to love, none to caress,
Roaming alone thro' this world's wilderness, Oh

How can I love, thee, how can I break apart,

When sheepskin or beeswax, make an awful plaster,
The more you try to take it off, a

Few days, a
Few days,
What's the use of sighing,
I'm going home;

For there is a happy land, far, far away,

Then Hoist up the flag, and long may it wave,

O'er the land of the free and the home of the

Girl I left behind me

Amen.


Bob Clayton