What did your Dad used to sing?

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 04 Oct 14 - 01:27 AM

Oh won't you TRY wheaties, TRY wheaties...

Bedtime was Hush Little Baby

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: CET
Date: 03 Oct 14 - 06:06 PM

I don't recall my father singing many songs, but he enjoyed music and had a pretty good voice. I do, however, have a distinct memory of him singing two songs to me, All Things Bright and Beautiful, and The Bonnie Earl of Moray. I can remember being really impressed by the line "He might have been the King."

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: bubblyrat
Date: 02 Oct 14 - 07:33 AM

"Green Grow The Rushes Oh " ( the "Two Two The Lily-white Boys" version ) and "There Once Was A Monk Of Great Renownm Who Shagged All The Women In London Town " . -- He was ex-RAF Bomber Command , so I forgive him.

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Oct 14 - 07:26 AM

Oh what a super thread !!!   yes, its great when people stand up at a club and say "My dad/mum/brother etc used to sing this" It keeps the Tradition Alive !!!

My DAD (Doodah) used to sing

Just an old fashioned lady with those old fashioned clothes,
and the smile that said "welcome" to you
though she wears no fine clothes,
nor no rich silken robes, still there's something that makes
her divine,
for the angels above, taught the way how to love
to that Old Fashioned Mother of Mine.

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: GUEST,Desi C
Date: 01 Oct 14 - 01:28 PM

He wasn't much of a singer but I can recall these few as a tot in theearly 50's

Pub With No Beer
Tom Dooley
Gypsy Rover
How much is that doggy
I'll take you home again Kathleen
Sunny side of the street

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: The Sandman
Date: 01 Oct 14 - 01:05 PM

The Bold Fenian Men.

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 01 Oct 14 - 10:34 AM

I used to watch my father shaving sometimes as a special treat. I would sit on the closed lav seat, and he would sing an eclectic lot of songs like The Wheel of the Wagon is Broken, Roll Along Covered Wagon, the beginning of Non Piu Andrai from Marriage Of Figaro, O What A Tight Little Island, On The Isle Of Capri... And after a bit I would join in, natch. This would have been mid 1930s -- I was born 1932 -- when songs like the Gracie Fields one and the Big Bill Campbell one and the Jimmy Kennedy one I mention were around. Tho of course Mozart and Dibdin were a little bit dead by then!...

≈M≈

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: GUEST,Andiliqueur
Date: 01 Oct 14 - 07:03 AM

My dad was called "Corporal Greengrass" in the RAF because he sang Inkspot Songs. My love of Folk Music came from all the Scottish Folk Songs his Scottish teacher sang to him in the 1920's eg Lizzie Lindsay and so he sang them to me in the 1950's and I still sing them now.
Another song from WW11 that he sang.

Won't you come to Abyssinia won't you come
Bring your own ammunition and a gun
Mussolini will be there throwing stink bombs in the air
Won't you come to Abyssinia won't you come.

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: GUEST,lanny seaton
Date: 30 Sep 14 - 05:53 PM

My father use to sing the same song but a little different
one there was a happy land
far far away
were the little pigs ran three times a day O you ought to see them run when the see the buther come to cut tree side of there bum

I was told there is more verse to the song

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: JHW
Date: 20 Jun 14 - 05:29 PM

Crossthreaded here but I had the constant problem of changeing up and down in church keys. (though I've got it beat now)
So ref the thread 'what song at your funeral' make sure to specify the key in your will.

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Black belt caterpillar wrestler
Date: 19 Jun 14 - 06:17 PM

My father was always a classical music man, going back to his childhood in Bebbington when he was accepted for Liverpool Cathedral Choir, but was not allowed to follow through this path as his parents were afraid of him having to cross on the Mersey ferry each day.

Some of my earliest memories of him singing was when he had parts in "The Pirates of Penzance" and "Iolanthe". I remember him singing the judge's song, even though that was not his part, I think that he understudied it as nobody apart from him and the person playing that part could manage it!

I think that he was really pleased the first time that he and I sang together in the bass section for "The Messiah".


One little thing that he said he learned as a boy chorister was sung to the tune of a Bach fugue and concerned Prout's publications of choral music.
Oh Ebeneezer Prout's, you are a funny man,
You have made Bach's fugues as simple as you can,
You have made Bach's fugues as simple as you can.

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: GUEST,Charmion
Date: 19 Jun 14 - 09:01 AM

"God Save The Queen" and "O Canada". Only way to tell the difference was by the words: "O Canada" was always in French.

Also "Maggie May" and "They're Moving Father's Bones to Build a Sewer", more as recitations than anything resembling actual, ya know, song.

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: GUEST,Sean Mac an Ultaigh
Date: 18 Jun 14 - 08:50 PM

"The Bard of Armagh"

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: GUEST,Guest
Date: 18 Jun 14 - 08:11 PM

In latter years Jim Reeves - and very well too!

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 18 Jun 14 - 01:16 PM

Well, sad to say that since my last post on this thread in 2008, my Dad is no longer with us: died on Christmas Day 2010 at the age of 93.
He retained his love of music to the end: never a great TV watcher, he loved Classic FM (apart from the ads!)
Anther abiding memory is of his style of singing: I used to hear him in church: if it got too high, he'd just drop an octave mid-hymn. Then if it went too low, up the octave again. It's a technique I've taken on myself if a song is not in my own chosen key!
He and my Mum (died 2002)loved choral singing, and Gilbert and Sullivan: the latter also passed on to me as I joined our local G & S Society for quite a few productions. Great photo of them in full regalia for a production of "The Mikado"!

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Airymouse
Date: 17 Jun 14 - 02:24 PM

Spanish Cavalier, Pope he leads a jolly life,Percy French's "Ye Ballade of Ivan P. S.,Some day I'm going to murder the bugler.
His old-time songs: Frog went courtin, Who did swallow Joanna down?, In a peapod once lived 5 little peas, Little brown jug,paper of pins,Can she bake a cherry pie?
What I was fondest of was his stories from Greenville Mississippi. Here's one and I'll try to indicate the accent, but I was born in NY, so just pretend Shelby Foote is telling the story. Warning. It's a bit sacrilegious, a word that he pronounced so that it almost rhymed with "egregious."
One day Jesus say da his 'ciples,'ciples, gather yo sel up a rock, cuz wez gon take a walk, in de will de ness. All dem 'ciples gather em sels up a medium size rock, 'cepin' Peter, cuz Peter he's a smart man, pow a ful smart. He gather em self up a great big rock. An dey walk an dey walk an dey walk in de will de ness. All dem 'ciples is pow a ful tired an pow a ful hon gry, specially Peter cuz hez ben totin des great big rock. An Jesus say to his 'ciples, "'ciples, wear es yo rock?" An all dem 'ciples bring fo'th dey rock, 'ceptin' Peter. He kina hang back. An Jesus say, "rock yo es bread,' an lo the rock ES bread.Then Jesus see Peter, and de light shone en his eyes and he say unto Peter, "Peter, yo is my rock. An up on des rock I gon buil' my church. An des rock gon be de foun DATION of my church. Des rock gon..." Peter say, "Lo' des rock gon be bread o nutin'"

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: GUEST,DTM
Date: 17 Jun 14 - 12:39 PM

My auld man's party pieces were "My Grannies Heiland Hame" and "Ragtime Cowboy Joe".
The song my mother would sing was "Maresy Doats...etc"
Both of them loved Strauss's Waltzes, as I do to this day.

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: JHW
Date: 17 Jun 14 - 11:13 AM

Hiawatha, Messiah and many another of choral society repertoire. Bass. Soloist occasionally in low budget shows. I've tried choirs but only sing from music enough to know the man next to me is wrong. Dad could do it and in church tried to show me how to pick the bass line out of the organ accompaniment. At home vespers. "The day though gavest Lord is ended or Now the day is over" - tucking us in at bedtime.

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: GUEST,Desi C
Date: 17 Jun 14 - 03:42 AM

Mine, bless his soul, wasn't much of a singer. but he TRIED to sing, I'll take you ome again Kathleen, How Much Is That Doggie (to me) and On The Sunny Side Of The Street, oh and The Pub With No Beer

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: meself
Date: 17 Jun 14 - 12:58 AM

My father did a lot of singing of various types of songs. When he was puttering around the house, he would often be singing a couple of lines from one of these:

1) Our Sergeant-Major (His medals broke our hearts/He won them playing darts - in fake George Formby accent);
2) Passengers will Please Refrain;
3) Dirty Yankee Miners (a Cape Breton labour/protest song);
4) Madamoiselle From Armetieres.

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: PHJim
Date: 17 Jun 14 - 12:30 AM

I became a single father of 3 year old twins and if they (now 38) were to answer this question I'm pretty sure what some of the songs would be. While driving in our old Dodge truck, they would say, "Sing that Blow Up Your TV song, Papa." They also seemed to like Mama, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Cowboys.
Once at a festival, I sang an old Gene Autry song that I learned as a kid called I'm A Cowpoke Pokin' Along. One of my kids was in the audience and he poked his wife and said, "Papa used to sing that while he bounced us on his knees."

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: LadyJean
Date: 17 Jun 14 - 12:27 AM

Dad was a Princeton man, so I have no idea why he sang "lord Jeffrey Amherst" But it does explain "Pekinese pekinese woof woof woof! Eli Yale." The Yale mascot is a bulldog, and Yalies sing bulldog bulldog bow wow wow.
He loved jazz. He sang, "Your Feet's Too Big", When we misbehaved we were told to straighten up and fly right.

My mother, a very proper lady. (My friends called her The Duchess.) Had a large repetoire of naughty songs. I sang some for a catter a few years ago. When I came to the one about that trio of old ladies who got locked in the lavatory, he gasped a little and said, "She taught you THAT!"

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: PHJim
Date: 17 Jun 14 - 12:20 AM

Some of the songs I recall my dad singing are The Whiffenpoof Song, Saint James Infirmary, Nobody Knows You When You're Down And Out.
Some of the tunes that he'd sing to us when we were kids were Christopher Robin, Frog He Would A Wooing Go. He'd always finish with:
They paddled of across the lake, Hi Ho said Raleigh,
They paddled off across the lake
And got swallered up by a big black snake
With a ...

That was the end of him and her, Hi Ho said Raleigh,
That was the end of him and her
Now we won't have tadpoles covered in fur
With a...

There's bread and cheese up on the shelf, Hi Ho said Raleigh,
There's bread and cheese up on the shelf
If youwant more sing it for yourself
With a...

There were nonsense syllables in the last line that I can't recall, but I thin each verse ended with, "Hi Ho said Anthony Raleigh."

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: GUEST,Shirley
Date: 16 Jun 14 - 02:08 AM

My Dad also sang the Bombin raid every new year. He had been in the Royal Engineers during the war. He was a Dundonian through and through.
He also sang a song about a soldier being fleeced of his money by two "flash girls" then committing suicide in his barracks. On this soldier's tombstone was written.    Don't go a courtin' flash girls of the city. flash girls of the city were the ruin of me.

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: GUEST,Valerie
Date: 24 May 09 - 06:07 PM

My father's party piece was the Hippopotamus Song. Dad had a deep voice after a couple of beers, and we would hold our breath on the last line, and there let us wallow in glorious mud.
He also liked singing Christmas carols at the late service on Christmas Eve.

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: fumblefingers
Date: 18 May 09 - 12:47 AM

Casey Jones-- circa 1910

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: olddude
Date: 17 May 09 - 10:41 PM

both types of music
country and western

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 17 May 09 - 09:15 PM

Whoops - abhorant apostrophe. Please feel free to pour scorn upon my grandma...

:D

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 17 May 09 - 08:58 PM

The Cossack lullaby

It was lovely to hear him sing it to my new grandson the other day as well:-)

I also remember a rendition of the Beer Barrel Polka done only as a Pole can do Polka's!

DeG

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: GUEST,Janice now in Western NY State
Date: 17 May 09 - 09:00 AM

My Dad liked Paul Robeson, so he would sing songs from Robeson's repertoire, especially "Old Man River" and "Go Down Moses." Otherwise he would sing mostly pop songs, show tunes, and novelty songs like the one that goes "If you be M-I-N-E mine, I'll be T-H-I-N-E thine, and I'll L-O-V-E love you all the T-I-M-E time." I also remember him singing "Toot, Toot, Tootsie, Goodbye," "Bicycle Built for Two," "In the Good Old Summertime," and "Man on the Flying Trapeze."

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Dorothy Parshall
Date: 16 May 09 - 10:20 PM

My Dad sang my brother and I to sleep most nights with songs of the 30s, some of the same ones his grandson (49) now plays as djangojazz. Dad would have loved that. I wonder if my son's love of that music came through the genes!?

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: ClaireBear
Date: 16 May 09 - 08:28 PM

Joe F, in case you ever revisit this thread, it's "come to your Nabob"

Cheers,
Claire

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Crowhugger
Date: 16 May 09 - 04:31 PM

Swanee River and The Eddystone Light. And with mom, The Keeper Did A-Hunting Go. Only when I was quite small. I don't recall hearing him sing at all after he taught me Swanee River on ukelele, which was when I was maybe 8 years old. I might conclude he was too miserable to sing, since they split up a coupla years later.

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Musket
Date: 16 May 09 - 03:56 PM

Dad wasn't much of a singer, (Although he told a few ribald jokes in his time..)

Mum however, sang in a concert troop in the '40s and '50s and had a good voice.

As a child, (and my eldest had this before she died when he was 2,) I recall my Mum singing;

Christopher Robin

Sadly, my two had to put up with me singing a parody;

Little boy kneels at the foot of the stairs
Clutched in his hand are a bunch of white hairs
Oh my! Just fancy that
Christopher Robin castrated the cat

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 16 May 09 - 02:25 PM

I could mention with that he has been enjoying "A Victorian Gentleman's Song Book" with James Griffett, RRC 1023 lately. It seems to match where some of his tastes lie very very well.

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 16 May 09 - 01:21 PM

A few thoughts...

In the house as a young kid, some Opera thing that always sounded to me like "Harley Double Vic and Vee an Treenia"

In the car on a journey, it might be.
When father painted the parlour
Mick McGilligan's Ball
Sweet Violets
I've Got Sixpence.

Also, at home, around the house.
A few from a John McCormack record, Oh The Days Of the Kerry Dancing, etc.

Annie Laurie
Flow Gently Sweet Afton
Vicar Of Bray

Tom Bowling
Drake's Drum
Old Bold Mate of Henry Morgan

At the moment, Jerusalem (Lift Up Your Gates and Sing) is popular.

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Bernard
Date: 16 May 09 - 12:31 PM

Oddly enough, my father doesn't sing... he didn't when I was a child, or whilst I was growing up, and at 85 he still doesn't.

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Dave Illingworth
Date: 16 May 09 - 04:16 AM

My Dad used to sing BROTHER CAN'T YOU SPARE A DIME, which I still sing. Apparently he used to serenade my Mum with STARDUST, which I also still sing. Sadly I only heard about him singing that song until after his death.   He was a scoutmaster, so also knew all the usual campfire songs, too many to mention.
My mother knew all the popular songs from the radio and sang them round the house, in a very musical voice.
Neither were "folk-singers" or sang in public (apart from scout camp fires) but, more and more, I realise that their humble (and tuneful)
singing was a great influence on me - probably as much as the radio
and all the great records I started listening to.

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 16 May 09 - 01:08 AM

oops, somehow got Dad inserted in the middle of his songs, above...

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 15 May 09 - 10:42 PM

I particularly love:

"When Britain first at Heaven's command said: "Boatswain, do not tarry;
The despot's heel is on thy shore, and while ye may, go marry"

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 15 May 09 - 10:37 PM

I can't think of anything in particular my father sang all the way through except for the one about the goat who coughed up the red shirts and flagged the train. I remember he sang in the church choir and they did the whole oratorio "Elijah".   I thought it was so long.   But now I love it.


Anyway, this is just a fantastic thread.

Hey, Bill D--

If you read this--any chance we can get you to recite "An Overworked Elocutionist", from early in this thread, at the Getaway?   That is just such a perfect party piece. And we can try to figure out where all those quotes come from. I can get a fair number--but there are some I've never heard before.

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Janie
Date: 15 May 09 - 09:16 PM

I have always followed this thread, and always found that it makes me sad.

My Dad was always afraid to really sing, though he loves music, especially old-time country, old-time blue grass (Ralph Stanley, but not New Grass) and folk music. All I have ever heard him sing are little snippets, usually along with a song on the radio or the record/cd player.   It was apparent from that little bit that he had within him a fine voice.    He is a grand whistler, but has always been afraid to cut loose with that also. Instead, he always encouraged us to sing, and to this day nothing gives him greater pleasure than when my remaining sister and I are home, Annie breaks out the guitar or the fiddle, and we sit down and sing some duets for him.

HIs own father was fine singer and whistler, ( apparently was also a fine banjo and fiddle player until he got saved in a church that only found a capella music acceptable) but only contenanced singing to the glory of his United Baptist concept of God. My earliest memories of live music are of my grandfather singing and whistling hymns as he went about the house, his orchard and his garden. he was a wonderful grandfather. But in his own kids, he managed to squelch any impetus to find their own voice.

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Nick E
Date: 15 May 09 - 09:04 PM

I don't know if you could call it singing but I hear "Go To Your Room" more than a few times

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 15 May 09 - 08:53 PM

The Tenderfoot
The Jam on Jerry's Rocks
John Nankivell, b. 1921:

Danville Girl
The Tennessee Waltz
The Red River Valley
Green Grow the Lilacs
Careless Love
Shenandoah

Chattenooga Choo Choo and other "pop" of the day

The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze, and other selections from the IOCA Songfest


Dad's hearing has gotten so bad that he hasn't sung for quite a while, and now Parkinson's is making speech difficult.

I treasure the memories, but mourn the loss. Never got him recorded.

~ Becky in Tucson

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: GUEST,Bryan
Date: 15 May 09 - 08:12 PM

DAD
Paddy your an Irishman
Paddy your a rouge
The only thing that's Irish
is your cloths and brogue
MUM
If i had a silver dollar and i put it on the
ground it would ro o o ll because its ro o ound
ME
"The pianist what played em was an undred and free
grabbed a andful of notes in no particaler key"

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Beer
Date: 27 Mar 09 - 10:05 PM

White Silver Sands. His all time favorite.
Beer (adrien)

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Joe_F
Date: 27 Mar 09 - 08:29 PM

I've got rings on my fingers,
And bells on my toes,
Elephants to ride upon,
My little Irish rose,
So come to my [?]
Upon St Patrick's Day:
Be Miss Chief Mumbo Jumbo Jijiboo Jay
O'Shea.

-- probably wrong, and I always hear "Miss Chief" as "mischief".

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: lompocan
Date: 27 Mar 09 - 05:55 PM

The two songs mt dad sang that stand out most in my memory were:
Bill Grogan's Goat, with a refrain of "bud-a-bee-bum-bum". I can remember him explaining that three red shirts could stop a train.

The other was John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt, with the "J"s pronounced as "Y".

Mostly I remember these from long car rides.

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Singing Referee
Date: 27 Mar 09 - 05:39 PM

A muvva was baffin' her baby one night
The poor little fing was an 'orrible sight
The muvva was poor and the baby was fin
Was just a wee skelinton covered wiv skin
The muvva turned round for the soap on the rack
T'was only a moment but when she turned back
'er baby was gorn and wiv anguish she cried
Oh where is my babe, and the angels replied

Your baby 'as gorn dahn the plug 'ole
Your baby as gorn dahn the plug
The poor little fing was so fin and so small
'e should 'ave been washed in a jug
Your baby is perfectly 'appy
'e won't want a baff any more
'e's floated away dahn the drain pipe
Not lorst but gorn before!

Best I can do with the North London accent. That wasn't his normal speach, but it was perfect for the song!

Still going strong at 91!

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Will Fly
Date: 27 Mar 09 - 02:51 PM

Ah Bert! Many thanks for the "Turned Up" thread. Excellent.