SIX GIRLS

Once I was a lady’s charmer but I’m unhappy now,
For courting six girls all at once to serve me anyhow.
Ma said that it was wicked but I laughed at her advice,
I knew it was very naughty but also very nice.

First I fell in love with Mary Ann and then with Mary Jane,
And then with lovely Miss McKay and then with Kitty Pane,
And then with Betty Hopkins and then with Nellie Small,
And I can say I found a way to hug and kiss them all.

This lasted for a week or two, I thought it perfect bliss.
And every night I went to town I had fresh lips to kiss,
I thought it would last forever, I never would be sold,
I was so very clever, and the charmers that I told.

Then, oh dear me, their names got mixed and at the garden gate
I said good-night to Nellie and I called her darling Kate,
I wrote a note to Mary Ann and called her Mary Jane,
And then to make a matter worse I addressed it to Kitty Pane,

I never shall forget the night I met those blessed six.
My darling said,"Now you must pay for all your naughty tricks,"
So Mary Ann she tore my hair and Mary Jane my coat,
And Miss McKay brought a young man who took me by the throat.

And as for Betty Hopkins, she smothered me with mud,
She banged my head till it was flat against the garden wall,

So Monday I left Mary Ann, on Tuesday Mary Jane,
And Wednesday lovely Miss McKay and Thursday Kitty Pane,
On Friday Betty Hopkins, on Saturday Nellie Small,
So that’s the reason why I'm left without a girl at all.

Sung by Mr. Clarence Thompson, Springhill, and recorded by
Helen Creighton July 1955.

Source: Maritime Folk Songs, by Helen Creighton, 1979, page 128

https://archives.novascotia.ca/creighton/audio/?Search=5772&t=00:09:54

https://archives.novascotia.ca/pdf/creighton/Mf289-616.pdf