"
Robin, Don't worry about it. I remember a part of another verse, (probably the 6th verse)
"

Thanks, Jimmy -- I really should remember not to post when I've been hitting the Bells.

"
Come on now Mary, can I run ye Hame,
ho Ho Ho, I've got a pair of sand shoes ?
Ha Ha Ha, You're hell of a funny
CLO and the OJ.

"

... it (well, one version) reads, "... got a pair o sannies".

Somewhere, I've what is purportedly the earliest version. Hamish Whyte (re)published it in Noise and Smoky Breath/Mungo's Tongues (an anthology of poems either closely or vaguely connected with Glasgow -- I had a poem in it where the +only+ connection with Glasgow was the title: 'The Girl I Met in Byres Road'. In the wake of that, I snailmailed Hamish to see what he had, and he sent me some stuff not included in the anthology.

If I have the energy, I'll try and put together what I've got (there's a long and funny glossing in Donald Saunders' _A Glasgow Diary_) and check it against the DigiTrad text.

Mostly, the references are pretty transparent (though as far as I know, I'm the only person ever to make the connection between the late fifties / early sixties Sunday Post obsession with the French Foreign Legion.

The major textual crux (heh, heh!) is whether it should read Lanliq or VP. I could look this up, I suppose. As Matt McGinn ...

... OUCH!! Freudian slip. Hamish Imlach. As far as I know, there isn't a recording of Matt McGinn singing it. Or am I wrong on this? Hope I am.

... sings it, it's VP, but then it was Carl McDougal what wrote it.

The obscure bit is the title itself -- Codliver Oil and the Orange Juice. Best bet on this is that these were provided free to expectant mothers (including Hairy Mary) in the fifties.

Off to drown my tendency to irrelevance in more Bells.

Hm ... See I already said all this, slightly drunkenly, earlier. Shows why I get ticked off for irrelevancy.

;-)

Robin

(Incidentally -- I'm too lazy to look this up -- is there a text of "Wee Johnny Lost his Johnny / Wae Doon the Broomilaw" lodged in DigiTrad?

R2.)