Liverpool Packet No.1 - A Picture History of Liverpool & Merseyside

Liverpool Street Songs & Broadside Ballads

Seth Davey of Bevington Bush

He sat on the corner of Bevington Bush
Astride an old packing-case;
And the dolls on the end of the plank went dancing
As he crooned with a smile on his face;

CHORUS: Come dey, go dey,
Wishin' me 'eart it wuz Sunday!
Drinkin' buttermilk all de week
Whisky on a Sunday.

He sat on the corner of Bevington Bush
Amid the old wooden beams
And the puppets were dancing "the gear".
A better show than ever you'd seen
In the Pivvy or on New Brighton Pier.

But in nineteen-hundred and two Seth snuffed it,
His song was heard no more;
The darkie-dolls in a jowler-bin ended,
And the plank went to mend the back door.

But on some stormy nights down Scottie Road way
With the wind blowing up from the sea,
You can still hear the song of Old Seth Davy
As he croons to his darkie-dolls three;

Fritz Spiegl writes:

I had heard about this song, and took it down when Glyn Hughes recorded it for me on tape, in about 1959, with the words given above (which, incidentally, have since been annexed by commercial entertainers together with an approximation to Glynn's tune, entertainers who have never been near Liverpool, and whose copyright claims to it should be ignored!)

* Even now there is a mystery - the second verse is indeed printed with five lines rather than four! It isn't obvious how these lines could be sung to the well-known tune.

Ten years later, in 1969, Fritz Spiegl discovered an old lantern slide showing an old man sitting on the corner of Bevington Bush and making some wooden dolls dance on a plank. henryp