Lyr Add: Smell! Smell! HIS BREATH!

Subject: Lyr Add: Smell! Smell! His Breath!
From: Joe Offer
Date: 30 Aug 08 - 04:41 PM

Well, I'm actually looking for information on but in the process, I came across this song onc a broadside from the National Library of Scotland, and couldn't resist posting it. Probable date of publication was 1880-1900.

SMELL! SMELL!
HIS BREATH!

E'er the tea party it had begun,
I eat an onion—only one,
Folks held their noses seemed ill at ease.
Stirred to and fro, made remarks like these—

Just smell his breath, do smell his breath,
Just take one sniff, if you wish for sudden death,
Then in a rage, one big fellow cried,
Here's a cake, for heaven's sake, go outside,                        
And change your breath, and change your breath!

Fain would I linger yet must be gone,
Leaving those custards all alone,
Sadly I find my way to the door,
Loud beats my heart as the shoe-blacks roar.—

Just smell his breath, do smell his breath
One little sniff is enough to cause sudden death,
Folks made a rush for the other side,
Hurrying, scurrying, this they cried,
Do change your breath, oh! change your breath!




...and let that be a lesson to us all.

Has anybody ever heard this sung?

-Joe-

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Smell! Smell! HIS BREATH!
From: Waddon Pete
Date: 30 Aug 08 - 05:34 PM

What a great discovery Joe!

Does it have a tune?

Pass the pickled onions!

Best wishes,

Peter

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Smell! Smell! HIS BREATH!
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 30 Aug 08 - 05:42 PM

Reads like it might possibly be a parody of a parlour song.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Smell! Smell! HIS BREATH!
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 31 Aug 08 - 06:35 PM

No further comments?

Reading it once again and trying to work out what kind of tune would fit, and I get a feeling it might be a parody of a revivalist hymn. Perhaps one about the evils of drink.

Here's a link to a website containing

A Temperance Hymn Book And Minstrels
A Collection Of 105 Christian Hymns, Songs & Odes
FOR TEMPERANCE MEETINGS AND FESTIVALS
By Rev. John Marsh, Published And Sold At
The Office Of The American Temperance Union, Circa 1841

I don't think it contains anything that might be an original for Smell his breath (though I haven't been through those "105 Hymns, Songs and Odes" enough to be sure). But there's some singeable stuff in there.

For example, a version of Auld Lang Syne that starts:

Be days of drinking wine forgot;
Let water goblets shine;
And from your memory ever blot
The days of drinking wine:
Those days of drinking wine, my friend,
Those days of drinking wine;
A temperance hour is worth a power
Of days of drinking wine!