There is a UK sheet-music dealer offering TEACHING MCFADDEN TO WALTZ, with words and music by M F Carey, circa 1880.

According to IMDB.com, there was a silent film called "Teaching McFadden to Waltz" released in 1911 in the US.

The book "Walton's treasury of Irish songs and ballads," Dublin, 1947, includes TEACHING MCFADDEN TO WALTZ.

I found this folk version in Ballads and Songs of Southern Michigan Collected and Edited By Emelyn Elizabeth Gardner and Geraldine Jencks Chickering, 1939.


CLARENCE McFADEN

SUNG in 1931 by Mrs. John Lambertson, Fielding, who learned the song from
her uncle when she was a child.

1. Clarence McFaden he wanted to waltz,
But his feet was not gaited that way;
So he saw a professor and stated his case
And said he was willing to pay;
Professor looked down in alarm at his feet,
And he viewed their enormous expanse;
So he tucked on a five to his regular price
For learning McFaden to dance.

CHORUS: One, two, three, just balance like me.
Though you're a fairy, you still have your faults.
Your right foot is lazy, your left foot is crazy;
Now don't be unaizy, and I'll teach you to waltz.

2. He took out McFaden before the whole class
And showed him the step once or twice.
McFaden's two feet they got tied in a knot;
Sure he thought he was standing on ice.
At last he got loose and struck out with a will,
Never looking behind or before;
His head it got dizzy, he fell on his face,
And chewed all the wax off the floor.

3. When Clarence had practiced the step for awhile,
Sure, he thought he had got it down fine;
He went to a girl and asked her to dance
And then wheeled her out into line;
He walked on her feet and he fractured her toes
And vowed that her movements were false;
Poor girl went around for two weeks on a crutch
For learning McFaden to waltz.

4. McFaden soon got the step into his head,
But it would not go into his feet;
So he hummed "Dan McGinty"
And counted the steps on the street;
One night he went home to his room to retire
After painting the town a bright red;
He dreamed he was dancing and let out his feet
And kicked the footboards off the bed.