ADD: The Baby's Name (Murphy/Hall)

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: What is this song with So. African places
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 29 Jan 22 - 02:29 PM

1900, 'The Baby's name was Kitchener' Boer War, sung by Charles Bignell. Try Googling. It's a well-known song. You might even get a copy of the sheet music.

Subject: RE: ADD: The Baby's Name (Murphy/Hall)
From: Joe Offer
Date: 28 Jan 22 - 01:17 AM

Try this one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8h9HMGTmlo

And a performance by Cosmotheka:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yo-FCK7SYRA

Subject: RE: Lyr Req/Add: The Baby's Name (Murphy/Hall)
From: GUEST
Date: 27 Jan 22 - 10:22 PM

Sadly, these Youtube videos are marked as private, so not accessible to mere mortals....

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: What is this song?
From: Manitas_at_home
Date: 27 Jan 22 - 01:24 PM

There's an old music hall song sung by cosmotheka that is a list of Boer war battles and generals.

Here's a link https://monologues.co.uk/musichall/Songs-B/Babys-Name-The.htm.

Subject: Lyr Req: What is this song?
From: topical tom
Date: 27 Jan 22 - 12:34 PM

When I was a young lad my mother used to sing me a song which incorporated South African place names.These may be misspelled at times but as nearly as I can recall the first words were:

The baby's name is Kitchenacame, Bethuen and Cambridge White Cruinxchy JKuba Pelma Juba Crrinky Warrenky....

and the last lines were

...Union Jack, Fighting Mack and the Heights of Preetoria Bobs.

   I would like to know the title and the missing lyrics to this song. CAN ANYONE HELP ME?.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req/Add: The Baby's Name (Murphy/Hall)
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Jul 19 - 07:27 AM

> Years ago I went to a Cosmotheka concert with Bridget Rowan and her husband Mark. Bid was the 'folk correspondent' for the Fylde Coast local paper. We sat on the front row.

> Cosmotheka started with the chorus (as a joke 'altogether now...').
She joined in of course (the only one in the room).
The look on their faces was priceless ... Al Sealy peers through the lights - 'oh. it's you. might have bloody known'.

> Al is sadly missed ...

I heard a Cosmotheka on the radio (Folk on Two, perhaps) some time in the 1980s, and they sang this song and The Kangaroo Hop and a few others. I still have the recording of it... somewhere. I found this TV concert on Youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXaZQEAhNcg. I love the little bunny hop that Al does at https://youtu.be/DXaZQEAhNcg?t=589 . Seems as if he succumbed to pneumonia very quickly after getting flu https://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=16738

Subject: RE: Lyr Req/Add: The Baby's Name (Murphy/Hall)
From: GUEST,Phoebe Hyams
Date: 07 Jul 12 - 12:54 PM

My grandfather who was badly wounded at Zoutpans Drift, having had five dum dum bullets shot through his body and miraculously survived, taught The Baby's Name etc. song to me when I was about four years old. That was just before the beginning of WW11

Subject: RE: Lyr Req/Add: The Baby's Name (Murphy/Hall)
From: GUEST,Deirdre
Date: 28 Jan 12 - 04:33 PM

I am a woman in my sixties now but remember marching up and down our hall in the 50's to my father and grandfather(who fought in the Boer War) singing at the top of their voices. I thought they had made it up to teach us the military leaders (army family!!) What great memories you brought back. Thank you.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req/Add: The Baby's Name (Murphy/Hall)
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 28 Nov 11 - 06:57 AM

Correct chorus here, L, and verses in the post after that. See my post on 11 May for a link to my version on YouTube.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req/Add: The Baby's Name (Murphy/Hall)
From: GUEST,Guest. L.Walker
Date: 28 Nov 11 - 05:44 AM

I decided to look on Google for correct words to The Baby's Name and was delighted to find all this information.
Like many of you I was taught this song (phonetically) by my paternal grandmother before I went to school; this would be 1941 or 1942. It is only in recent years that I realised the names referred to military leaders.
My remembered version of the last lines is:-

Cape Town Mafeking French
King of the Ladysmith Bobbs
Union Jack and Fighting Mac
Lion Victoria Bobbs.

Happy Memories and Thank you all for the information.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req/Add: The Baby's Name (Boer War song)
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 23 Sep 11 - 02:51 PM

WorldCat.org tells me that the British Library and Oxford University both have the sheet music, described thus:

THE BABY'S NAME
Words by C W Murphy and Albert Hall; music by C W Murphy; sung by Charles Bignell.
London: Francis, Day and Hunter, ©1900.

First line: The war, the war, the blooming war.
First line of chorus: The baby's name is Kitchener, Carrington, Methuen, Kekewich, White.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req/Add: The Baby's Name (Boer War song)
From: Gurney
Date: 22 Sep 11 - 03:09 AM

Frederick Sleigh Roberts.
Bob is the familiar shortening of the forename Robert, so Bobs for Roberts. That's what they called him.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req/Add: The Baby's Name (Boer War song)
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 21 Sep 11 - 01:04 PM

I used to walk past the statue of Lord Roberts every day on my way to college in Exeter.

Pretoria Bobs...?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req/Add: The Baby's Name (Boer War song)
From: GUEST,arfdone
Date: 21 Sep 11 - 06:35 AM

Here's the full song.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8h9HMGTmlo&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Subject: RE: Req/ADD: The Baby's Name (Boer War song)
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 10 May 11 - 02:29 PM

Also the hero of the novel The Devil's Paintbrush by Jake Arnott, in which Mac meets Aleister Crowley in Paris. A good read.

Subject: RE: Req/ADD: The Baby's Name (Boer War song)
From: GUEST,Dave in Michigan
Date: 10 May 11 - 01:16 PM

BTW, for trivia collectors, Fighting Mac, aka Hector MacDonald,
was also the dedicatee and namesake of the Scott Skinner tune
Hector the Hero.

Subject: RE: Req/ADD: The Baby's Name (Boer War song)
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 10 May 11 - 06:50 AM

See my illustrated version of The Baby's Name

Subject: RE: Req/ADD: The Baby's Name (Boer War song)
From: GUEST,John Vale
Date: 11 Sep 10 - 02:40 PM

Well ive spent the day driving and singing the blinking song non stop. TRYING to sing the correct words, but clearly the way im used to singing it is rather different! Memories from childhood are hard to erase. Anyway for a laff, here's 'my' version!

The baby's name is Kitchener Kavanagh, Koehner, Kensita, White.
Karonja Bloomer, Cowan, Majuba
Kathinka Warren, Colenza Kruger
Cape Town Mafeking French
Kings and their ladies in bobs
The Union Jack and fighting Mac
And all Victoria Bobs

Well bearing in mind I was only four or five when Mum used to sing it, I think its not bad!

Subject: RE: Req/ADD: The Baby's Name (Boer War song)
From: GUEST,c.g.
Date: 11 Sep 10 - 06:56 AM

Me too! I learned it from my grandfather (born about 1870). I remember singing the chorus at a primary school assembly, though I can't remember why.

Subject: RE: Req/ADD: The Baby's Name (Boer War song)
From: GUEST,John Vale
Date: 10 Sep 10 - 06:32 PM

Its so comforting to know that I'm not the only person with this facinating song swimming around in my head. As with most of the correspondents, I remember my mother 1915-2001 singing it to me when i was very small. All these mysterious names places and references have been stuck in my subconscious for many many years only to shoot out of my mouth unexpectedly whilst dring.It was imperative to find out the proper words, which your superb thread has done many times over. Thank you!

Subject: RE: Req/ADD: The Baby's Name (Boer War song)
From: GUEST,J gratwick
Date: 07 Jul 10 - 05:18 PM

I googled this idly, never dreaming anything would appear!!
A school friend used to recite it the way she learned it from someone in her family.    Her version had wandered a long way from the original, in the oral transmission...
The baby's name was:
Kitchener Calendar Murphy Cape Kitchener White,
Kronje Plume upon Majuba,
Getty-go on, Elenza kruger,
Capetown, Mafekin France,
Crinoline ladies in bobs,
The fighting Mac and the Union Jack,
go on to Victoria Bobs.

It was a case of pure Chinese Whispers resulting in pure nonsense, but it had rhythm and stuck in my mind ... only later did I twig that there was a Boer War connection in there somewhere!
How fascinating to discover it was a real song - and to see the true version! Thank you!

Subject: RE: Req/ADD: The Baby's Name (Boer War song)
From: burglar
Date: 13 May 10 - 11:49 AM

i have lots of tapes of Tom and Bertha Brown which were recorded at the worksop mallard folk club in the 80's which i used to run.

ive put a few on cd via the marvels of technology..so if anyone wants any ..let me know

My Email thingy [e-mail]

Ps...i'm not really a burglar

Subject: RE: Req/ADD: The Baby's Name (Boer War song)
From: GUEST,Michael McNamara
Date: 03 May 10 - 04:07 AM

In he early 60s I wrote to the Daily Mirror to see whether any of their readers knew the words as they were exasperating me in their elusiveness. I had a brilliant response, mainly from elderly ladies, all with slightly different versions but a core of similarity. For some reason the song has an attraction beyond its politics.
I am trying to find out more of its background but with little sucess (even wikipedia has let me down) any clues?

Subject: RE: Req/ADD: The Baby's Name (Boer War song)
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 03 Feb 10 - 04:48 PM

There's a novel called The devil's paintbrush (forgotten author's name) about Fighting Mac's last days and suicide in Paris, in whih he (fictitiously) meets Aleister Crowley. Very good read imo.

Subject: RE: Req/ADD: The Baby's Name (Boer War song)
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 03 Feb 10 - 04:44 PM

My grandad (b 1905) used to sing a couple of WWI kids' songs:

Kaiser Bill went up the hillto spy the British army,
Gen'ral French jumpd out the trench and knocked the Kaiser barmy!
(Goes to Jack & Jill went up the hill)

Poor old Kruger's dead,
He died last night in bed,
He cut his throat on a bar of soap,
Poor old Kruger's dead.
(Goes to The grand old duke of York)


Baby's Name goes down well when I sing it on the Isle of Wight. One or two attempt the chorus now, althought they usually only get as far as "Methuen"!

Subject: RE: Req/ADD: The Baby's Name (Boer War song)
From: GUEST,Guest, Joe Cooper
Date: 01 Feb 10 - 05:57 AM

I've enjoyed reading this thread on The Baby's Name. I have the sheet music and play it on the Piano for fun. Not as good as Cosmotheka dis it of course. Dave Sealey is still 'doing the halls' with his one man shows on Stanly Holloway and Max Miller. Worth going to see him.He's in Lichfield Feb 2010.

Subject: RE: Req/ADD: The Baby's Name (Boer War song)
From: GUEST,bob lamb
Date: 21 Sep 09 - 06:45 AM

wow....i've finally found it ! my father, b sept 1880, used to play this song on the piano in our front room in Liverpool, he died in 1951 before i was really able to find out more about his early life. i remember him saying 'the baby's name was.." .. .and rattling off the names of 'battle' locations in South Africa during the Boer War.
so far as i can remember he seemed to know them all because the song went on for some time.

Subject: RE: Req/ADD: The Baby's Name (Boer War song)
From: GUEST,Annie
Date: 24 May 09 - 01:20 PM

My Mother was able to recite the first verse and the chorus when she was 94 years old.   Where did this come from and where is she likely to have learned this. Her school days were spent in Wales

Subject: RE: Req/ADD: The Baby's Name (Boer War song)
From: GUEST,Guest Andi
Date: 20 May 09 - 09:26 AM

Thank you all so much for going to the trouble of posting these lyrics

Like other have said, I thought they had been lost in the mists of time. I have had the chorus floating around in my head since I was a toddler and even remember being taught how to write it - (for writing practice) by my Grandad

Thanks all of you, I'm going to print them out and keep them safe

Subject: RE: Req/ADD: The Baby's Name (Boer War song)
From: GUEST,Penny
Date: 12 Apr 09 - 06:54 AM

I am now 54 and this was sung by my Mother and before her my GrandMother. Itaught it to my children and they have taught it to my Grandchildren. The girls seem more keen to sing it than the boys! I have always loved it and it has been a bit of a party piece over the years.

Subject: RE: Req/ADD: The Baby's Name (Boer War song)
From: Flash Company
Date: 26 Mar 09 - 11:18 AM

My Gran, who was a schoolgirl during the Boer war, used to quote a playground verse which went:-

Lord Roberts and Kitchener,
Baden Powell and White,
All went off to South Africa
To have a jolly good fight!

Can't remember all the rest, but it finished:-

And when the war is over,
How happy we all will be,
The flag will fly over Pretoria,
And Kruger will hang from a tree!

Bloodthirsty little buggers, the kids were in those days!

FC

Subject: RE: Req/ADD: The Baby's Name (Boer War song)
From: GUEST,Bid
Date: 26 Mar 09 - 06:54 AM

Yeah - but i was only making the sounds - never could work out the first few lines of the chorus.

Bid


Subject: RE: Req/ADD: The Baby's Name (Boer War song)
From: Austin P
Date: 12 Feb 09 - 03:52 PM

Years ago I went to a Cosmotheka concert with Bridget Rowan and her husband Mark. Bid was the 'folk correspondent' for the Fylde Coast local paper. We sat on the front row.

Cosmotheka started with the chorus (as a joke 'altogether now...').
She joined in of course (the only one in the room).
The look on their faces was priceless ... Al Sealy peers through the lights - 'oh. it's you. might have bloody known'.

Al is sadly missed ...

Subject: RE: Req/ADD: The Baby's Name (Boer War song)
From: Austin P
Date: 12 Feb 09 - 03:52 PM

Years ago I went to a Cosmotheka concert with Bridget Rowan and her husband Mark. Bid was the 'folk correspondent' for the Fylde Coast local paper. We sat on the front row.

Cosmotheka started with the chorus (as a joke 'altogether now...').
She joined in of course (the only one in the room).
The look on their faces was priceless ... Al Sealy peers through the lights - 'oh. it's you. might have bloody known'.

Al is sadly missed ...

Subject: RE: Req/ADD: The Baby's Name (Boer War song)
From: GUEST,Pat
Date: 11 Feb 09 - 05:26 PM

My Grandad used to sing this to me when I was a small boy in the 60's I'd love to hear the song in full.

Subject: RE: Req/ADD: The Baby's Name (Boer War song)
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Dec 08 - 11:08 AM

My 89 year old mother asked me today if I could find the words to an old song my grandad Fred Williams, (who was born in Shropshire in 1888, and came to Canada in 1910)sang to her as a small child. She was so delighted to get the whole song, she remembers the tune and most of the chorus. Thanks for posting.

Subject: RE: Req/ADD: The Baby's Name (Boer War song)
From: GUEST,Dave Parsons
Date: 18 Jun 08 - 09:28 AM

My dad used to sing this around the house in the 40s (he was born in '09) but I only ever caught a few of the names which have been going my head for years, I did try to google it without success, I mentioned it to one of my sons and he had located this link in seconds. Next step to find a recording.

Thanks for all the hard work.

Dave (Brummie) Parsons

Subject: RE: Req/ADD: The Baby's Name (Boer War song)
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 25 Mar 08 - 08:09 PM

Mrs Dragon Zorg sang it at the Herga 45th birthday party last week!

Kitty

Subject: RE: Req/ADD: The Baby's Name (Boer War song)
From: GUEST,Superted
Date: 25 Mar 08 - 08:04 PM

My Grandad was born in 1901 and used to sing this to me and my brother. He died in 1991 and we thought he'd taken the song with him as we could never remember the words until I heard it sung on BBC Radio 4 programme Underneath The Archives.This has solved a family mystery and brought back some memories of the old boy singing his face off on a Sunday afternoon.

Subject: RE: Req/ADD: The Baby's Name (Boer War song)
From: GUEST,Frances Watts
Date: 29 Feb 08 - 12:01 PM

I just googled "The Baby's name" on the offchance and up came the words and all this - amazing. My grandma also used to sing the song to my brothre and me in the 1950s, - she was born in 1896- and I could never remember all the words.
Thanks

Subject: RE: Req/ADD: The Baby's Name (Boer War song)
From: GUEST,Nigel May
Date: 15 Jan 08 - 03:00 PM

My grandmother used to sing this song to us and I have a very clear memory of the words she used. I believe that it should be Mafeking, not Mafekin and the second last word was Victoria, not Pretoria, which I think did not come into existence until after the Boer War. Bobs was indeed Lord Roberts, and Blobbs is just a silly family name.

Subject: RE: Req/ADD: The Baby's Name (Boer War song)
From: Charley Noble
Date: 11 Jan 08 - 08:22 PM

Mudcat rules!

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Req/ADD: The Baby's Name (Boer War song)
From: GUEST,carole
Date: 11 Jan 08 - 07:46 PM

I googled to get this. My grandmother taught it to me in the 1940's. I remembered most of it. Now have the spaces filled in!

Subject: RE: Req/ADD: Boer War song-The Baby's Name
From: The Vulgar Boatman
Date: 08 Nov 07 - 03:10 PM

Blobs; Bobs (Lord Roberts of Kandahar)is mentioned earlier in the chorus. He took over the campaign with Kitchener as his 2i/c after a number of disasters.

Subject: RE: Req/ADD: Boer War song-The Baby's Name
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Nov 07 - 02:57 PM

I thought it was:

The baby's name was Kitty McCarrington
Generals Buller and White ....

Subject: RE: Req/ADD: Boer War song-The Baby's Name
From: GUEST,c.g.
Date: 25 Oct 07 - 04:45 PM

Lyddite Pretoria Bobs, not Blobbs

Bobs was the nickname of someone - General Roberts? I learnt this from my grandfather! I remember singing it at a primary school concert.

Subject: RE: Req/ADD: Boer War song-The Baby's Name
From: GUEST,guest
Date: 25 Oct 07 - 02:23 PM

I also just googled a few words as these lyrics have been going around in my head since a family gathering about our family history. My granddad often sang this song to us fifty odd years ago. Nice to see the full version.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Boer War song
From: GUEST,Pat in Co. Cork
Date: 24 Oct 07 - 08:44 PM

My great aunt taught me the chorus when I was about four or five. She was born in 1885 and never left Macroom which is a small town in Co Cork. I did not have all the correct pronounciation. I was creating a character for a short story who would repeat some of the chorous. I never thought I would really find the info. Cheers to all Pat

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Boer War song
From: The Vulgar Boatman
Date: 24 Oct 07 - 05:21 PM

Walrus, certainly was picric acid. Best not go into too many details in these troubled times. Stained everything around the explosion yellow. We still occasionally found Boer War shrapnel shells on one range I worked on in the 70's. One chap found one in his garden and brought it to the pub! Still live...

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Boer War song
From: Gurney
Date: 24 Oct 07 - 04:41 PM

Guest at 6;53, since the chorus is a recitation of the baby's full name, I always assumed that Blobbs was his surname, rather than reference to a martial figure.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Boer War song
From: topical tom
Date: 23 Oct 07 - 09:05 PM

GUEST,MCP:


          Awesome! My mother used to sing that song back in the 40's and 50's! I never believed I would ever see that song again! I thought it had long faded into the mists of history.What a blast from the past! Mudcat, I love you!