The last time I tried this, the computer erased it all. All of it ! So I hope everyone is grateful for the effort it's taking to bring you this Mudcat Exclusive !

What I hear Salters singing :

[Juber, mind the bees,]
Admire it while I sing,
For every time you'll mind the bees,
You're sure to feel your sting.

I [took a chance?] a-walking,
A-walking in the park.
I'd meet a pretty girl,
She'd never fail to flirt.
I wish I had ten thousand bricks
To build my chimbley higher,
To keep those damned [infernal ?] cats
From pissin' out my fire.

Then do you mind the bees,
And mind it while I sing,
For every time I [wrinkle ? ring a?] bee,
It'll always cure your sting.

BELAY !

[She ?] took me down a-sailing,
A-sailing in a punt.
And every time I looked
My girl come along the bee soon stole the trick.

Ah, Juba, mind the bee,
And mind it while I sing,
For every time that bee comes around
It'll sure to feel your sting.

BELAY !

    Salters must have begun singing too soon, for the very first line is missing. Much of the song's humor relies on the substitution of innocent words for expected rhymed vulgarities.

The "sailing" stanza is badly garbled, as though two separate episodes have been jammed together. The first of them, however, must have been close to one that appears in a bawdy version of the well-known "Lulu," as given by Harold Bennett (without the asterisks):

"She and I went fishing in a dainty punt,
And every time I hooked a sprat she stuffed it up her c***."

Salters may have suffered a sudden feeling of embarrassment at singing the song into a recording machine, hence the confusion (including the two "BELAYS!") "Stole the trick," a card-game reference, means "got the better of the situation."

The part about the cats and the chimney reappears almost identically in a bawdy version of "Landlord Fill the Flowing Bowl." What may be the word "infernal" sounds a lot more like "imfrazzle," but I have no other suggestion to make.

Salters went to sea in 1872, so he was probably about 70 when he recorded for Carpenter in Greenock in 1928. It's too bad that this imperfect performance represents the only available version of this song.