A facsimile of the sheet music for this song appears in a book entitled "Sixty Years of British Music Hall" edited by John M Garrett, Chappell and Co, London, 1976.

THAT GORGONZOLA CHEESE

Composed and sung by Harry Champion, words by Fred W Leigh, published 1894.

1. My wife lately bought a Gorgonzola cheese,
She saw it in a shop marked "cheap";
She thought that her loving husband it would please,
If only till my birthday it would keep.
She placed that cheese safely in a drawer,
A month went by or perhaps a little more;
Some friends came on my birthday and the dinner went off great,
But when the missus put the Gorgonzola on a plate--

CHORUS: Oh! that Gorgonzola cheese!
Must have been unhealthy I suppose,
For the old Tomcat fell a corpse upon the mat,
When the "niff" got up its nose;
Talk about the flavour of the crackling on the pork,
Nothing could have been so strong,
As the beautiful effluvia that filled our house,
When the Gorgonzola cheese went wrong.

2. My wife felt a bit offended just because,
The company exclaimed "Great Scott!"
Declared they'd like to know what animal it was,
And asked me if a license I had got.
The fire went dead clean out,
And so did one of my old pals, who came back with a gun.
Said he, "Look out! I'm going to fire; that cheese I mean to kill."
But when he'd smashed it all to bits, it got more lively still. (Chorus)

3. When those bits had done a waltz about the place,
At "touch" they soon began to play.
But when two pieces down the passage had a race,
I thought I'd got the hydrophobi-a.
We burned pastilles, but, lor! they did no good.
Destroy that cheese we thought we never should.
But when someone began to puff a good old "penny smoke",
The Gorgonzola cried, "I'm done! It's time for me to croak." (Chorus)

This is one of a handful of songs that I recall my Grandfather singing, including others by Harry Champion such as "Any Old Iron" and "Boiled Beef and Carrots", and sentimental songs like "She's only a bird in a Gilded Cage" and "The Boers have got my Daddy".

Malcolm Smith.