lyrics from the Topic LP,one verse missing, and others slightly altered, but the majority remains unchanged:

THE SLAP-BUM TAILOR

I'll sing you a song, it'll please you full well
Of a slap-bum tailor in London did dwell
One day with a neighbour he fell in a sad rage,
And for slapping her bum she was put in a rage.

CHORUS
Oh, the poor tailor, pity the tailor
For slapping her bum he was put in limbo.
Oh, the poor tailor, pity the tailor.

This woman was a dealer in second-hand clothes;
One day in the street with a carpet she goes.
She began for to shake and to toss in the wind:
'Good lord,' says the tailor, 'Your dust does me blind.'

'I value thee not, at my door I will stand,
For a tailor is but the ninth part of a man.'
and as he was sewing and taking long stitches
The dust flew about him and spoiled his new breeches.

so he flew in a passion he called her a whore,
Then he jumped off his board and he run out of door;
He fell on one knee, crying, 'Come, madam, come,'
Then he turned up her clothes and he well slapped her bum.

The streets and the lanes was all of an uproar;
He banged her so hard till her buttocks was sore.
Some they did laugh and some did cry shame;
They raised such a mob till the constables came.


'For slapping her bum,' the justice replied,
'Seven days in the jail the tailor shall lie;
He beat her so hard, she can't get out of bed,
So on bread and water the rogue shall be fed.'

So now the poor tailor in limbo do lie;
He'll remember the carpet till the day he die
The lads make their game, crying, 'Run, tailor, run,
She's a—shaking the carpet, run and slap her bum.'^^