Funny, Traditional Songs

Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs
From: Arkie
Date: 25 Jun 06 - 02:49 PM

Buffalo Boy
Will The Weaver (or Every Day Dirt)
Wee Cooper of Fife
No, John, No
I Wish They'd Do It Now
Leatherwinged Bat
The Persian Kitty
Thais
I Had But 50 Cents
Dame Durden
The Hound Dog Song
Down In The Arkan
Jack Was Every Inch A Sailor
Miss Bailey
Billy Boy
Eight Babies to Mind
Boll Weevil
The Fox
My Crosseyed Girl
Barefoot Boy With Boots On
The Old Maid's Song
The Cat Came Back
Whistle, Daughter, Whistle
Devil's Nine Questions
Farmer's Cursed Wife

Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs
From: Arkie
Date: 25 Jun 06 - 03:08 PM

There Ain't No Bugs On Me

and there is a bug song with the line
"every microbe and baccilus has a different way to kill us". I can not think of the actual title. I have been wracking my brain to no avail. I have not sung it in many years and my memory no longer works on demand. Perhaps this will jog someone's memory

Subject: Lyr Add: SOME LITTLE BUG
From: Arkie
Date: 25 Jun 06 - 06:17 PM

I figured the title would sneak up on me. Here is the bug song.

Some Little Bug

In these days of indigestion it is oftentimes a question
As to what to eat and what to leave alone.
Every microbe and bacillus has a different way to kill us
And in time they all will claim us for their own.
There are germs of every kind in every food that you can find
In the market or upon the bill of fare.
Drinking water's just as risky as the so-called "deadly" whiskey
And it's often a mistake to breathe the air.

Cho: For some little bug is going to get you someday.
    Some little bug will creep behind you some day.
    Then he'll send for his bug friends
    And all your troubles they will end,
    For some little bug is gonna find you someday.

The inviting green cucumber, gets most everybody's number
While sweetcorn has a system of its own.
Now, the radish seems nutritious, but its behavior is quite vicious
And a doctor will soon be coming to your home.
Eating lobster, cooked or plain, is only flirting with ptomaine,
While an oyster often has a lot to say.
And those clams we eat in chowder make the angels sing the louder
For they know that we'll be with them right away.

For some little bug is going to get you someday.
Some little bug will creep behind you some day.
Eat that juicy sliced pineapple, and the sexton dusts the chapel
Some little bug is gonna find you some day.

When cold storage vaults you visit, You can only say, "What is it
Makes poor mortals fill their systems with such stuff?"
Now, at breakfast prunes are dandy if a stomach pump is handy
And a doctor can be called quite soon enough.

Eat a plate of fine pig's knuckles and the headstone cutter chuckles
While the gravedigger makes a mark upon his cuff.
And eat that lovely red bologna and you'll wear a wood kimona
As your relatives start picking out your stuff.

All those crazy foods they fix, will float us 'cross the River Styx
Or start us climbing up the Milky Way.
And those meals they serve in courses mean a hearse and two black horses
So before their meals some people always pray.

Luscious grapes breed appendicitis, while their juice leads to gastritis
So there's only death to greet us either way.
Fried liver's nice, but mind you, friends will follow close behind you
And the papers, they will have nice things to say.

    For some little bug is going to get you someday.
    Some little bug will creep behind you some day.
    Eat that spicy bowl of chili, on your breast they'll plant a lily .
    Oh, some little bug is gonna find you some day.

Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs
From: Mickey191
Date: 25 Jun 06 - 08:36 PM

Cannot vouch for it's author or if it's traditional--But it is damn funny: Nell Flaherty's Drake.

Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs
From: Severn
Date: 25 Jun 06 - 09:12 PM

The Black Cook
The Old Sea Chest
Life Is A Toil
Bungle Rye

Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs
From: captainbirdseye
Date: 26 Jun 06 - 06:08 PM

Since when has the boolweevil blues been a funny songIknow humour can vary,but whats funny about cotton crops being wiped out by the bollweevil,and people being homeless.

Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 27 Jun 06 - 10:12 AM

Two posts above mentioned "Some Little Bug".

When I read the lyrics of this song maybe four or five years ago, I was enchanted, but no tune did I find.   What to do? What to do?

I ended up writing my own tune for it, with which I'm pretty pleased, thank you very much. But I'd still be interested to hear the original tune, if there is one. Does anyone have a source for the original tune?

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs
From: Arkie
Date: 27 Jun 06 - 01:10 PM

I have a book with the tune packed somewhere in my garage. I am looking for it as I get time, and it will show up one of these days. If someone else does not find it first I can send you a copy.

Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs
From: Severn
Date: 27 Jun 06 - 07:56 PM

Percy French wrote "Nell Flaherty's Drake", I believe.

(In Draconian Measures?)

Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 28 Jun 06 - 07:49 AM

Arkie:

I have the original tune now. Thanks.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs
From: mrsmac
Date: 28 Jun 06 - 10:06 AM

Nell flaherty's Drake was not written by Percy French as far i know. It's author is unknown but dates from 19th century and is thought to have been inspired by and code for Robert Emmett.

Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs
From: Severn
Date: 28 Jun 06 - 05:01 PM

Thanks, mrsmac. I was told that by someone who first sang it to me years ago. I looked on some liner notes of recordings I have it on (shoulda double checked anyway) and found out you are indeed right.

Sorry for bad info, folks.

Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs
From: thespionage
Date: 28 Jun 06 - 05:01 PM

Bob,

That's the song, but Rise Up Singing credits it to Pink Anderson and Roy Bookbinder says that it is Pink Anderson's when he performs it and lists Anderson as the song's composer on the album of the same name. I don't know where the discrepancy is. Maybe Pink Anderson codified the song from various versions floating around. (It's a great song regardless.)

Russ

Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs
From: GUEST
Date: 29 Sep 08 - 11:01 AM

I like The Mermaid (trad/anonymous) as sung by the Great Big sea; also by them, Harbour Grace Excursion (written by Johnny Burke). Cocaine Bill and Morphine Sue is also v funny, especially when sung by someone "too old" to be talking about such things.

Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 29 Sep 08 - 11:17 AM

The funniest song tends not to be very funny after you've heard it 37,000 times!

Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs
From: The Sandman
Date: 29 Sep 08 - 11:21 AM

Lord Randall.

Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs
From: Mr Red
Date: 29 Sep 08 - 11:23 AM

A Trooper Watering his Nag - sing it often. In fact a lady about 15 year my senior - when she heard it thanked me for doing a complete version because she only knew it as a nursery rhyme with one innocent verse.

And recently there was a song on the radio that left nothing to the imagination from the same era if not the same book - Pills to Purge Melancholy by Thomas D'Urfey. 1st ed 1715.

see the thread on Samuel Pepys

Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs
From: Mr Red
Date: 29 Sep 08 - 11:37 AM

Oh Yes Nel Flaherty's Drake love it. Would learn it but I have not enough time or memory cells. It follows a well established tradition known to the Romans. Though they tended to write on lead tablets and thow them down a well, at a temple. They called them "curses" or modern day archeologists do.

Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs
From: Newport Boy
Date: 29 Sep 08 - 11:38 AM

Guest (above) - You'd have to be pretty old to be 'too old' to be talking about Cocaine Bill & Morphine Sue, which dates back at least to the 1920's. Many things are only 'new' to youngsters!

Phil

Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs
From: GUEST,TJ in San Diego
Date: 29 Sep 08 - 11:53 AM

A Horse Named Bill
Thais (Not the opera - the parody song;It's about a libidinous monk and a belly dancer)
Zuleika (She might have been the belly dancer)
Hullaballoo Belay
Drunken Sailor

Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs
From: Midchuck
Date: 29 Sep 08 - 11:55 AM

By far the best source of funny songs in the oral tradition (whether the authorship is known or not) is the old "Song Fest." There were several editions, mine is the 1958 printing with the yellow cover. Bought in '59 my freshman year in college. When it fell apart I punched the pages so I could put it in a three-ring binder.

Good Liberals may not consider it an acceptable source, since many of the funny songs of the era were built around making fun of stereotypes of racial or ethnic groups, but us crusty old farts can still laugh at them.

The second-best source is Jerry Silverman's "The Dirty Song Book." But that might be objectionable as well, because it makes fun of sexual stereotypes and peculiarities.

Eventually we will get to the point where nothing that might hurt the feelings or anyone, anywhere, will be considered funny. Meaning nothing at all will be funny.

Let us laugh as much as we can, while we can.

Peter

Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs
From: GUEST,TJ in San Diego
Date: 29 Sep 08 - 02:00 PM

Midchuck:

I have the same book, still in somewhat usable shape. You are correct with respect to the PC element. I subscribe, however, to the definition of PC advanced by students at one of our universities recently(paraphrased, but close): "Political Correctness: Advancing the proposition that it is possible to pick up a turd by the clean end."

Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs
From: Artful Codger
Date: 30 Sep 08 - 03:36 AM

Uncle Dave: Two years late, but here's an answer.

"Some Little Bug Is Going to Find You" (not "Get You" as in Arkie's post of lyrics) was written in 1915; words by Benjamin Hapgood Burt and Roy Atwell, music by Silvio Hein. You can find it on the CD "Moonlight Bay: Songs as Is and Songs as Was" (1998) by Joan Morris and William Bolcom. Joan mostly recites rather than sings this song, but you can pick out the tune from Bill's playing. There are also MP3s available of Billy Murray's recording (1916). See http://www.archive.org/details/somlitbug1916

Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs
From: GUEST,Volgadon
Date: 30 Sep 08 - 06:13 AM

Any in the Marrowbones vein, or 7 Drunken Nights.

Also, an Ukrainian song, 'Pidmanula, Pidvela', in which the girl keeps inviting the guy places but never shows up.

Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs
From: GUEST,oberlixie
Date: 29 Jul 10 - 08:21 AM

Believe there is arecently composed ditty entitled Thats another reason why i stayed in Scibbereen,bus strike,slept in,no money etc etc,also a peach of asong about the misery of growing old called For fourty five years i,ve been buggered, one line is, Uric acid yhey say is my problem i do not mind telling you this it takes about half of an hour to get my old doodle to piss.Then it realy gets rough.You would have to be drunk enough to sing it but sober enough to remember the words

Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs
From: The Sandman
Date: 29 Jul 10 - 09:41 AM

the bald headed end of the broom.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmqpgT0ClK4