The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #4948 Message #2595824
Posted By: Jim Dixon
23-Mar-09 - 11:01 PM
Thread Name: Origin: Bald Headed End of a Broom
Subject: Lyr Add: LOVE (BALD-HEADED END OF A BROOM)
From College Songs and Popular Ballads for Guitar arranged by Emma Schubert, C. W. Bemis, H. W. Harris and others (Boston: Oliver Ditson Company, 1888)—where it appears with a musical score:
LOVE
1. O love, it is such a very funny thing.
It catches the young and old.
It's just like a chance in a lottery game,
For many's the man's been sold.
It will make you sing like a bird on the wing.
It will cause your heart for to swell.
You may love your wife as you do your life,
But 'twill empty your pocketbook as well.
So boys, keep away from the girls, I say,
And give them plenty of room.
You will find when you're wed they'll bang you till you're dead
With the bald-headed end of a broom.
2. When a man's in love with a very pretty girl,
He talks as gently as a dove.
He calls her his honey and he spends lots of money
For to show her he's solid in love.
When his money's all gone and his clothes up the spout,
He will find the old saying true:
That a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.
What the deuce is a fellow going to do
With a wife and fourteen half-starved kids?
I tell you it is no fun
When the butcher comes round to collect his bills
With a dog and a double-barrell'd gun.
3. So, boys, keep away from the girls, I say,
And give them plenty of room.*
You'll think you're in clover till the honeymoon's over,
And then you'll wish you were dead.*
With a cross-eyed baby on each knee,
With a wife with a wart on her nose,
You will find that love don't run so smooth
When you have to wear your second-hand clothes.
When the rents are high, the kids will cry
Kase they ain't got nothing for to chaw.
You'll holler for your son for to load up the gun
For to vaccinate your mother-in-law.
[*Something seems wrong here because these lines don't rhyme, but that's the way I found it.—JD.]