Lyr Req: Three Jolly Consumptives

Subject: Lyr Req: Three Jolly Consumptives
From: Joe Offer
Date: 02 Aug 18 - 11:11 PM

Another email request:

Hi!

I'm trying to find the origin, lyrics and tune for this song.

Can you help?

Thanks a lot,

Gill

---

All I could find here was a message from John MacKenzie that said that Alex Campbell used to sing it.

Oh, and there's a reference to the song in a 1931 issue of the Campus Crier of the Washington State Normal School: https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/51136742.pdf

Can anybody help with lyrics and information? John?

-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Three Jolly Consumptives
From: Mick Pearce (MCP)
Date: 03 Aug 18 - 03:36 AM

References also in the Florida Flambeau of 1926 Florida Flambeau and Monty's memories of 1932 ( singing "What's the color of horseshit? Brown! Brown! Brown!", to the tune of "We're Three Jolly Consumptives")

Mick

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Three Jolly Consumptives
From: Mick Pearce (MCP)
Date: 03 Aug 18 - 08:54 AM

There are more references but I haven't located any lyrics.

Mick

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Three Jolly Consumptives
From: Joe Offer
Date: 04 Aug 18 - 01:33 PM

refresh

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Three Jolly Consumptives
From: GUEST,Jon Bartlett
Date: 04 Aug 18 - 03:09 PM

Thre jolly consumtives
[splutter, splutter, splutter]
One lung to you...

There must be more. Heard live from Alex, Brighton, ?1963

Jon Bartlett

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Three Jolly Consumptives
From: gnomad
Date: 05 Aug 18 - 01:41 AM

From memory of circa 55 years (in other words b***** unreliable) of my long-deceased Father's performance;

To the tune I think known as the "barber surgeon's knock" or "Postman's knock"

'Three jolly consumptives (or sometimes rendered as conservatives); *,*,*.'

*is an difficult-to-decribe, throat-clearing sound, in 3 stages.

To give Dad his due, this was a rarity, seldom 'performed'.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Three Jolly Consumptives
From: gnomad
Date: 05 Aug 18 - 03:03 AM

Thinking about it, not so much an actual tune, more a sort of rhythmic progression.
Rather like 'Shave and a haircut, two bits' but with slightly different beats.

The *,*,*. part might also be described as cough, hawk, spit (generally performed as grossly as possible). One could see the consumptives conection if one thinks tuberculosis.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Three Jolly Consumptives
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 07 Aug 18 - 01:31 PM

From a report of a social event in The Virginia Teacher, November, 1920:

First to be announced by the ringmaster were the negro minstrels, who entertained with jokes and songs. Next came the five tiny lady singers, who sang "Five Jolly Consumptives" and other popular songs. The songs and the dances of the chorus girls were applauded by everyone.

"We're Three Jolly Consumptives" is mentioned in High School Life, Fond du Lac High School, 1923.

It is quoted in a WW2 novel, The Mountain and the Feather, by John Ashmead (Houghton Mifflin, 1961), page 332:

Oh we are three jolly consumptives,
Cough cough cough.
We get a free ticket to Tokyo,
Cough cough cough.

From a memoir about Jews in Colorado, Pioneers, Peddlers, and Tsadikim, by Ida Libert Uchill (University Press of Colorado, 2000—originally published 1957), page 7:

To the tune of "The Bear Went Over the Mountain": We are the jolly consumptives, We are the jolly consumptives, We are the jolly consumptives, Hock, tschu, ping. To the tune of the Toreador song we warned a victim of tuberculosis: To-re-ador, don't spit on the floor. Use the cuspidor. That's what it's for."

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Three Jolly Consumptives
From: GUEST,E Levine
Date: 05 Jun 21 - 06:06 PM

I heard my Dad (Irving Levine) sing this...I believe from his days at City College (in NY City), likely not long before WWII. Or at NYU after WWII? (he was born in 1914). I don't recall if he specified the number 3...or just Jolly Consumptives.

Here is how I recall it:

"Oh We're the Jolly Consumptives -- Um Cha, Phoey! (3 throat & spitting sounds). Repeat this first section. "And when we get well again, we'll raise the same old Hell again. For We're the Jolly Consumptives -- um, cha poey!"

Does anyone know this version? And is there more to it?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Three Jolly Consumptives
From: cnd
Date: 05 Jun 21 - 11:18 PM

From the memoir of Nancy Spain, Why I'm Not A Millionaire, learned from Dorothy Dickson:

We are three jolly consumptives
(Terrible imitation of hawking and spitting here follows as chorus)
Hoch-choo, hoch-choo
We are three jolly consumptives
(Hoch-choo, hoch-choo)
We never work and we never will
We run up the hell of a doctor's bill
We are three jolly consumptives
(Hoch-choo hoch-choo)

Apparently Scottish singer Alex Campbell (link) sang a version of the song, but I couldn't find it.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Three Jolly Consumptives
From: Anglo
Date: 05 Jun 21 - 11:56 PM

It was a standard for Alex, who was a frequent guest at my local folk club in Stourport-on-Severn in the early 60s. A throwaway between songs - all I remember him doing is the title, followed by the sound effects.