The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #9856   Message #3792310
Posted By: Joe Offer
26-May-16 - 03:11 PM
Thread Name: Origins: Daddy's Whiskers / Father's Whiskers
Subject: RE: Origins: Daddy's Whiskers / Father's Whiskers
Not much source information available on this. The sources listed in the Traditional Ballad Index are quite recent. Can anybody find any earlier sources. Here's the Ballad Index entry:

Father's Whiskers

DESCRIPTION: "We have a dear old daddy For whom we daily pray, He's got a set of whiskers, They're always in the way." The whiskers are so extensive that they are put to a variety of absurd uses: Straining gas, feeding cattle, serving as camouflage in war
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1973
KEYWORDS: father family humorous nonballad hair
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (3 citations):
Pankake-PHCFSB, pp. 262-263, "My Pappy's Whiskers" (1 text)
Silber-FSWB, p. 241, "Father's Whiskers" (1 text)
DT, FATHWISK

Roud #13619
File: FSWB241A

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The Ballad Index Copyright 2015 by Robert B. Waltz and David G. Engle.


...and the lyrics from the Digital Tradition (suggested corrections in italics):

FATHER'S WHISKERS

We have a dear old daddy
For whom we daily pray,
He's got a set of whiskers,
They're always in the way.

CHORUS
Oh,
they're always in the way,
The cows eat them for hay,
They hide the dirt on father's shirt,
They're always in the way.

Father had a strong back,
Now it's all caved in,
He stepped upon his whiskers
And walked up to his chin.

We have a dear old mother,
With him at night she sleeps,
She wakes up in the morning
Eating Shredded Wheat.

We have a dear old brother,
He has a Ford machine,
He uses father's whiskers
To strain the gasoline.

We have a dcar old sister,
It really is a laugh,
She sprinkle's father's whiskers
As bath salts in her bath.

Father has a daughter,
Her name is Ella Mae,
she climbs up father's whiskers
And braids them all the way.

Around the supper table
We make a merry group,
Until dear father's whiskers
Get tangled in the soup

Father fought in Flanders,
He wasn't killed, you see,
His whiskers looked like bushes
And fooled the enemy.

When father goes in swimming,
No bathing suit for him,
He ties his whiskers 'round his waist
And gaily plunges in.

@kids @camp @family
filename[ FATHWISK
RG