Lyr Add: Big Fat Slob

Subject: Lyr Add: Big Fat Slob
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 09 Mar 20 - 08:19 PM

RIP: Clement Nathaniel "Piccolo Pete" Saunders (1910-2017)

“Papa drank a lot after fishing and had several fistfights with other sportsmen either on the dock or in such high-grade bars as “Bethel's Fountain of Youth.” This led to his putting up a hundred-dollar prize for anyone who could stay in the ring with him for three rounds.

There were some fine boxing matches, but the two best were with a ringer from Gun Cay called the “Rubber Man,” whose specialty was bouncing back up after every knockdown – he didn't make it through the three rounds – and with the older of the two Butler brothers. Papa had a fine match with Louis Butler, but his brother, Hermie, was one big, black dude, and very strong. He had Papa looking pretty well whipped until the latter part of the third round when Papa caught him with a good left hook and then a combination of left hooks and straight rights that put him down. The round ended before the end of the count so Papa paid him the prize money and called a halt to the open challenge. The locals began singing a song about him called, “The big, fat slob's in the harbor, this the night we hab fun!”
[Hemingway, Jack, Misadventures of a Fly Fisherman, 1986, p.27]

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Big Fat Slob
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 09 Mar 20 - 08:25 PM

Big Fat Slob
“Mr. Knapp called Mr. Hemingway
“A Big Fat Slob”
Mr. Ernest Hemingway balled his fist
And gave him a knob

Big fat slob in Bimini
This is the night we have fun
Oh the big fat slob in Bimini
This the night we got fun

Mr. Knapp look at him and try to mock
And from the blow
Mr. Knapp couldn't talk
At first Mr. Knapp thought
He had his bills in stalk
And when Mr. Ernest Hemingway walk
The dock rocked

Mr. Knapp couldn't laugh
Mr. Ernest Hemingway grin
Put him to sleep
With a knob on his chin.”
Bimini Nights
2002 - Victory World, DVD, UPC 746105016996

Bimini Nights
2011 - Victory Records, CD, VR168, 2011.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Big Fat Slob
From: An Buachaill Caol Dubh
Date: 09 Mar 20 - 09:09 PM

Is the song quoted above the song these locals sang (translation/lyrical version), or one composed more recently?

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Big Fat Slob
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 10 Mar 20 - 02:21 PM

Overheard in Bimini: God rest Nat but... if he had been born an albino his eyes would still been brown as...

The sources are a deckhand/lounge singer (deceased) - Yank anglers - social media. Yikes.

There are two intertwined urban legends, the 'original' with the Butler Bros., which I've heard since way back in the day but has never been recorded(???) It's just a few simple lines repeated. If the dates are right, Bimini Gal was only a year or so earlier. Curious.

Not sure when the Knapp Jr. version with all the dialog first turned up but sometime after. It's the one that made it onto the DVD. The CD is taken from the DVD.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Big Fat Slob
From: An Buachaill Caol Dubh
Date: 13 Mar 20 - 04:03 AM

Thanks for this information. ABCD.