The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #66721 Message #1109890
Posted By: JohnInKansas
05-Feb-04 - 08:47 AM
Thread Name: Nice Songs Made Naughty
Subject: RE: Nice Songs Made Naughty
The "sneaker line" of the sort you're looking for is (or was some time back) a more or less standard thing in barbershop singing. Most of the trick lines were "naughty" at most, rather than outright obscene and nasty.
It's been many years since I was regularly in the company of active barbershoppers, but I can recall a late fifties SPEBSQSA convention in the mid fifties at which one of the favored quartets did a "zipped up" version of School Days. The first run through was straight, and in great harmoney, followed by a second pass with a number of "zingers" slipped in.
Sorry but about the only thing I remember for sure was the line:
"She wrote in my book, I love you true, when we were a couple of kids."
became:
"She wrote in my book, ...poignant pause ... I know-a-dirty-joke,
when ...etc.
Rather tame, I'm afraid, but I suspect the practice survives if you can find someone active in that tradition.
Down by the Old Mill Stream is another often done, in the "patter style" with interjected counter-lines.
Down by the old mill stream, where I first met you ...
becomes, usually with the high tenor doing the italicized bits:
Down by the old not the new but the old mill stream,
Where I first not second but first met you ....
The interjected patter lines were frequently "warped" into suggestive form, but I'm sorry, I can't remember a version to pass on at the moment.
Certainly the most "risque" zing was when another (or maybe the same first mentioned) quartet replaced the traditional ending tag "Shave and a haircut, four-bits...etc. with:
Sung by the whorehouse ... quartet
Have ya got a hard on ... not yet
Are ya gonna get one ... you bet
slowly and in full harmony It's sloooowly riiiisiiiing.
(note: high tenor modulates on last syllable)
John