The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #168479   Message #4070221
Posted By: GUEST,Mike Yates
31-Aug-20 - 05:24 AM
Thread Name: Song - Johnny Bradbury
Subject: RE: Song - Johnny Bradbury
While we are talking about the Cantwell Family. Here are three fragments of song that I recorded from them in the '60's. Can anyone help with their identification, please?

Three Fragments

1.On one bright and Sunday morning
I was picking mush-a-rooms
When some great big clumsy something
Came and stole my pantaloons

Take my clothes up to the grubber
And my shoes to Uncle Sam
When I’m dead and gone, dear mother
On my tombstone spread some jam

Roud 23519. In English slang, the word ‘grubber’ can means either a workhouse, a tramp, or else a market-trader. ‘Uncle Sam’ probably refers to a pawnbroker.

2. A kettle will gaily sing, bubbling over with joy
The children shout with glee as they climb upon my knee
Before everything seems so jolly even the missus keeps chatting
The liver and sausages in the pan and bursting their sides a-laughing

3. Oh I can’t sleep on me right side
And I can’t sleep on me left
For the right side is the right side
To sleep on at night
I can’t sleep on the other side
With me face towards the wall
And as long as there’s a little drop of scrumpy in the house
I can’t sleep at all