Pat: Thank you for your post and setting the record straight of it. This is one of the few great classic modern songs that have certainly gone into tradition. (No dis. to your copyright.)

The other remarkable thing about the song is that it it one of the most-titled songs in the world. You mention: Paddy and the Barrell (original), The Sick Note, Murphy and the Bricks, Dear Boss, The Bricklayers Song. I also have: The Sick Letter; The Barrel Song; Why Paddy's Not at Work Today; Why Yassir's Not at Work Today; The Excuse Note; Paddy's Excuse; A letter from a bricklayer in Golders Green to the firm for whom he worked; Bricklayer's Accident Report

Any more? You mention some knowledge of over 20 titles-- perhaps some others can list a few.

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Then we have the following item which you may wish to verify:

On 9th February 1996, Pat Cooksey ...introduced it as follows: Quote, I wrote this song back in 1969 for a friend of mine, Sean Cannon, who was working on a building site and Sean was getting a bit of a name for himself as a singer... When we arrived at the club we did not realise that Neil Armstrong had chosen that precise moment to take his first steps on the moon and nobody turned up at the club at all. Sean did not sing this song that night but has sung it many, many times since.

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Last (and, again, just for the nitpicking of it to better understand this great song) Sam Hinton writes that "It was generally cited as an actual letter that had been received by some government agency, and I remember reading it somewhere around 1937. In 1940 it appeared in READER'S DIGEST as an actual letter supposed to have been received by a naval officer from an enlisted man who was explaining why he had overstayed his leave;. this story had the victim working on a silo on his parents' farm."

Sam then credits both you and Hoffnung for reducing the story to its essential brilliance. I agree. It even goes over in Orlando, Florida and little else I sing does.