Five years ago(!!) Bob Bolton mentioned above "The Hat McGinnis Wore". I'm trying to decipher a version of this sung on a wax-cylinder recording of 1928 from the Carpenter Collection (where it is spelled McGuiness"). Web searches have proved fruitless, pointing me only to the Folktrax listing of the recording I already have, and to this thread.

The tune is "The Sash" Here's what I can make out

THE HAT MCGUINNESS WORE

McGuiness was an Irishmen, from Donegal he came
He fought in many a battle and [indistinct] great fame
But a cannon ball it laid him low on some far[?] Yankee shore
And his widow she presented me with the hat McGuinness wore.

  I'ts short and it's shabby, but I love it just the same.
  McGuinness wore it when he first from old Ireland came
  But it [brings back many memories?] of happy days of yore
  As I sail the wide Atlantic in the hat McGuinness wore.

I signed on board the Tennessee but pretty soon I saw
Cocked hats were not the fashion on a Yankee man o' war
So I [stashed?] it in my hammock, as we sailed the salt seas o'er
And that accounts for the present shape of the hat McGuinness wore

  You can talk about your cheesecutters and [indistinct] so grand
  Your fancy man o' war caps, with ribbons and with [bands?]
  You can search the South Seas stations, from Shanghai to Singapore
  But you'll never find the equal of the hat McGuinness wore.

Can anybody help with the blanks? And is there any more of this? Most of Carpenter's recordings seem to be only a verse or two, rather than the whole song.

WassaiL! V