Lyr Req: The Gardener's Wife (?) (Bawdy)

Subject: Lyr Req: The Gardener's Wife (?) (Bawdy)
From: GUEST,Jon Cademy
Date: 27 Jan 26 - 12:28 PM

I heard a bawdy folk song at a Morris Ale in New England about ten years ago, about a gardener's wife. There were all sorts of vegetable metaphors, including one about "his raddishes" and "her turnips".

Sadly, I can't recall anything else. I can't remember any part of the chorus or even if The Gardener's Wife was the actual title. But if there's some other bawdy song with vegetable metaphors, I'd want to learnt about that too.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The Gardener's Wife (?) (Bawdy)
From: Jack Horntip
Date: 27 Jan 26 - 01:44 PM

Perhaps the following:

If It Wasn't for the Houses in Between
Gus Elen

If you saw my little backyard, "Wot a pretty spot!" you'd cry,
It's a picture on a sunny summer day;
Wiv the turnip tops and cabbages wot peoples doesn't buy
I makes it on a Sunday look all gay.
The neighhours finks I grow 'em and you'd fancy you're in Kent,
Or at Epsom if you gaze into the mews.
It's a wonder as the landlord doesn't want to raise the rent,
Because we've got such nobby distant views.

CHORUS:
Oh it really is a wery pretty garden
And Chingford to the eastward could be seen;
Wiv a ladder and some glasses,
You could see to 'Ackney Marshes,
If it wasn't for the 'ouses in between.

We're as countrifled as can be wiv a clothes prop for a tree,
The tub-stool makes a rustic little stile;
Ev'ry time the bloomin' clock strikes there's a cuckoo sings to me,
And I've painted up "To Leather Lane a mile."
Wiv tomatoes and wiv radishes wot 'adn't any sale,
The backyard looks a puffick mass o' bloom;
And I've made a little beehive wiv some beetles in a pail,
And a pitchfork wiv a handle of a broom.

CHORUS:
Oh it really is a wery pretty garden,
And Rye 'ouse from the cock-loft could be seen:
Where the chickweed man undresses,
To bathe 'mong the watercresses,
If it wasn't for the 'ouses in between.

There's the bunny shares 'is egg box wiv the cross-eyed cock and hen
Though they 'as got the pip and him the morf;
In a dog's 'ouse on the line-post there was pigeons nine or ten,
Till someone took a brick and knocked it orf.
The dustcart though it seldom comes, is just like 'arrest 'ome
And we mean to rig a dairy up some'ow;
Put the donkey in the washouse wiv some imitation 'orns,
For we're teaching 'im to moo just like a cah.

CHORUS:
Oh it really is a wery pretty garden,
And 'Endon to the Westward could be seen;
And by climbing to the chimbley,
You could see a cross to Wembley,
If it wasn't for the 'ouses in between.

Though the gas works isn't wilets, they improve the rural scene,
For mountains they would very nicely pass.
There's the mushrooms in the dust-hole with the cowcumbers so green,
It only wants a bit o' 'ot-'ouse glass.
I wears this milkman's nightshirt, and I sits outside all day,
Like the ploughboy cove what's mizzled o'er the Lea;
And when I goes indoors at night they dunno what I say,
'Cause my language gets as yokel as can be.

CHORUS:
Oh it really is a wery pretty garden,
And soap works from the 'ouse tops could be seen;
If I got a rope and pulley,
I'd enjoy the breeze more fully,
If it wasn't for the 'ouses in between.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The Gardener's Wife (?) (Bawdy)
From: Robert B. Waltz
Date: 27 Jan 26 - 01:49 PM

Jack Horntip wrote:

Perhaps the following:

    If It Wasn't for the Houses in Between
    Gus Elen

If that is the song (or even if it isn't :-), we should note that Gus Elen was the performer who made the song famous in the music halls, but the words are by Edgar Bateman and the music by George Le Brun (according to Peter Davison's Songs of The British Music Hall.

There is a full article about it on John Baxter's Folk Song and Music Hall site.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The Gardener's Wife (?) (Bawdy)
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 27 Jan 26 - 03:03 PM

Hardly bawdy, chaps!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The Gardener's Wife (?) (Bawdy)
From: Robert B. Waltz
Date: 27 Jan 26 - 03:36 PM

Steve Gardham wrote:

Hardly bawdy, chaps!

Well, what do you expect of a music hall song? :-p

The Ballad Index, at least, has only seven songs which I keyed as bawdy and with food references, and none of them about vegetables. I certainly wouldn't have thought of "Houses in Between" as a candidate, but I have no alternative to offer.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The Gardener's Wife (?) (Bawdy)
From: GUEST,Jon Cademy
Date: 27 Jan 26 - 05:32 PM

Sadly, this isn't the one. The innuendo was extremely obvious for various body parts. I've asked a few friends who sing bawdy songs at Renaissance Fairs. The Californians had never heard of it, but my friend from New England did vaguely recall it, even though it wasn't in their group's repertoire.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The Gardener's Wife (?) (Bawdy)
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 27 Jan 26 - 05:33 PM

Not the one you're after but close, and at least the sexual euphemisms are present.

The Gardener (aka The Periwinkle) printed by Morren of Edinburgh c1800

As Miss Betsey one day in the garden was walking,
She met with young Robin, who of love was talking;
His words were so pretty, his ways were so pleasing,
But still she cried, Robin, how can you keep teasing.

Says Robin to Betsey, I'm a gardener by trade;
And many a fine garden in my time I have made;
Besides, my dear girl, it won't cost you a farthing,
Neither for planting nor weeding your garden.

My garden, said she, has too long been untill'd,
It is now overgrown, and almost got wild;
It wants digging and trenching, and manure likewise,
To make the flowers spring and the onions to rise.

Then like another gardener, for to work on the ground,
In order to till her garden all round;
Says Betsey to Robin, You make my eyes twinkle,
Och, what are you doing with my periwinkle!

Says Robin to Betsey, I am sowing of seed,
But I must turn it up, it is so full of weeds;
I'll do my work neatly, I'll take out every wrinkle,
So Robin kept working at her periwinkle.

National Library of Scotland, LC 2805(8) 117780616

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The Gardener's Wife (?) (Bawdy)
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 27 Jan 26 - 05:43 PM

Of course 'The Sprig of Thyme' and 'The Seeds of Love' are both on the same theme in their earliest forms.

I have 15 bawdy gardener euphemism pieces but none of them include radishes and turnips unfortunately.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The Gardener's Wife (?) (Bawdy)
From: Jack Horntip
Date: 27 Jan 26 - 06:21 PM

I have searched my bawdy texts for radishes and then again for turnips and don't see anything. I have RenFair and Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA) songbooks which are part of my "accumulation". Nothing popped up for me.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The Gardener's Wife (?) (Bawdy)
From: Jack Horntip
Date: 27 Jan 26 - 07:20 PM

Robert Waltz wrote:

The Ballad Index, at least, has only seven songs which
I keyed as bawdy and with food references, and none of them about
vegetables. I certainly wouldn't have thought of "Houses in Between"
as a candidate, but I have no alternative to offer.

How about "The Marrow Song" ?

The Marrow Song

There's a man lives down in the street I'd like you all to know
He grew a great big marrow for the local farmer's show
When the story got around, they came from far and wide
When they saw the size of it, all the ladies cried

[Chorus]
Oh, what a beauty, I've never seen one as big as that before
Oh, what a beauty, It must be two foot long or even more
Such a lovely colour, so nice and round and fat
I never thought a marrow could grow as big as that
Oh, what a beauty, I've never seen one as big as that before

[Verse 2]
He was leaning on his garden gate the other day
He beckoned to a lady who lived just across the way
He took her down the garden path and showed her it with pride
When she saw the size of it that little lady cried

[Chorus]
Oh, what a beauty, I've never seen one as big as that before
Oh, what a beauty, It must be two foot long or even more
Such a lovely colour, so nice and round and fat
I never thought a marrow could grow as big as that
Oh, what a beauty, I've never seen one as big as that before

If the version was done by an American singer, the singer would have
"translated" the British "marrow" (cucumber?) into a turnip or other
vegetable.

Subject: Lyr Add: Vegetable Garden Blues (Sowell)
From: cnd
Date: 27 Jan 26 - 07:23 PM

Also not quite right, but there's the entertaining song off the Putnam County Pickers' 1978 album, It's About Time (Rose Records Rose-14-U)

Vegetable Garden Blues
(Ron Sowell - New Orchard Music Co. - ASCAP)

You can caress a carrot, grab a green bean
Leaf through the lettuce, do anything you please
You can ravish a radish, bite on a beat
Manhandle a melon if you really think you're neat
Munch on a mushroom if you're really feelin' bad
But don't touch my tomato, 'cause that really makes me mad

I love my tomato, ripe round and red
Offer me anything, I'll take my tomato instead

I don't care for spinach -- I just can't stand the taste
To eat a rutabaga seems like such a waste
Don't care for potatoes, never did like eating roots
That goes for apples, peaches, strawberries, cherries, and all of those silly fruits.
Don't care to pick a berry, don't care to peel a grape
Just let me eat a tomato, I won't even... hesitate

I love my tomato, even while it's still on the vine
Offer me anything, I'll take my tomato every time

You may be a cucumber and really think you're cool
A real top banana, talkin' 'bout nobody's fool
You may be a jalapeño pepper and think you're red hot
The head cabbage, a real big shot
Hey king corn, keep your ears peeled and to the ground
And don't go messin' with my tomato when I'm not around

'Cause I love my tomato, boiled, stewed or fried
Offer me anything, I'll take my tomato every time

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The Gardener's Wife (?) (Bawdy)
From: Robert B. Waltz
Date: 27 Jan 26 - 07:32 PM

Jack Horntip wrote:

How about "The Marrow Song" ?

Maybe bawdy, but it's not in the TBI or the Roud Index, at least under that title, first line, or first line of chorus. :-) So I don't feel much blame for not knowing about it. :-)

To the original poster: Is there any possibility that the song you're thinking is a teasing song? (That is, one that seems to be leading up to an obvious rhyme and then veers off, such as "Sweet Violets": "There once was a farmer who took a young miss Back by the barn, and gave her a... lecture On horses and cows and eggs And told her that she had such beautiful... manners....) This might explain both bawdry and comestibles. :-)

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The Gardener's Wife (?) (Bawdy)
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 28 Jan 26 - 04:18 PM

We perform The Marrow in Spare Hands. It goes down well. 30s song I think, and famously featured in that wonderful Yorkshire film 'Kes'.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The Gardener's Wife (?) (Bawdy)
From: Felipa
Date: 29 Jan 26 - 07:01 AM

The song that came into my head when I saw this request is "The Gairdner Chiel", though Chiel means Child not wife.                     “O ye shall hae my rose, fair maid,
Gin ye’ll gie your flooer tae me,
And amang the flooers o’ your faither’s yard
I’ll mak’ a gown for thee." https://mainlynorfolk.info/shirley.collins/songs/proudmaisrie.html