Lyr Req: Exactly 10 minutes too late

Subject: Lyr Req: Exactly 10 minutes too late
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Mar 08 - 07:55 AM

I am looking for lyrics for a song with the following chorus / phrase

"Punctuality is all very proper I know
But all hurry and worry I hate
For it always occurs that where every I go
I'm exactly ten minutes too late"

If anyone has the lyircs or a singer of this song it would be greatly appreciated

Thank You

Louise

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Exactly 10 minutes too late
From: pavane
Date: 10 Mar 08 - 08:04 AM

I am sure I have seen it before, quite recently - was it a music hall song?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Exactly 10 minutes too late
From: pavane
Date: 10 Mar 08 - 08:13 AM

Found by Google:

Ten minutes too late

Ten Minutes Too Late written by Harry Clifton (1824-1872)

Notes: Harry Clifton was a prolific London music-hall writer and performer. There is a running thread about his work in the Digital Tradition forum: http://www.mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=51212

Ten Minutes Too Late" is performed by Máirtín de Cógáin on his CD The False Start

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Exactly 10 minutes too late
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 10 Mar 08 - 08:14 AM

There IS a thread about this song, though it's a few years old. It's worth doing an internal Mudgoogle for -

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Exactly 10 minutes too late
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 10 Mar 08 - 08:17 AM

Here:

http://www.mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=92678

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Exactly 10 minutes too late
From: pavane
Date: 10 Mar 08 - 08:23 AM

There is also a song at the Bodleian library called Pleasures of Being too late, where the singer missed a variety of disasters, such as a two sinking boats, one hotel fire, and a road accident, because he was not punctual!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Exactly 10 minutes too late
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 10 Mar 08 - 09:00 AM

Sounds great - do they have it online, and if so, any hope of a link? That other Bodleian broadsheet page was fantastic (All Around My Hat? Can't remember now). What a great resource that is -

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Exactly 10 minutes too late
From: pavane
Date: 10 Mar 08 - 09:12 AM

Here is a link to the library

Bodleian Ballad Library


And here to the song
Pleasures of being too late

The search function is very temperamental.
I find I get the best results if I search on index 2.
Quite often, it misses entries using index 1, which it finds with index 2.

But lots of interesting stuff to be found here!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Exactly 10 minutes too late
From: pavane
Date: 10 Mar 08 - 09:21 AM

There was a previous thread discussing this version of All Around My Hat. It looks as if the version we know is a derivative, and the humorous cockney song was the original, as no earlier version is known.

You can also find probably the earliest versions of other songs there. For example Black Velvet Band c1820, set in Barking, London, and William and Diana/Dinia about the same date, which was parodied in Villikins and Dinah.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Exactly 10 minutes too late
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 10 Mar 08 - 11:39 AM

Thanks so much for that, Pavane. What a gold mine! Being a harp player, I was intrigued to see harp strings named among all the various music wares on sale in the charming advertisement at the bottom and along the sides of the broadsheet. Quoted here (mis-spellings are in the original):

- - -

Printed by T. King, Birmigham, and sold by Mr. Green, at his Music Stall, near the Turnpike, City-road, and at 27, Featherstone-street, City-road, where an extensive collection of old and new songs, harp and violin str, fancy stationary, &c., may be had.

Violins, Accordians, Harmonicas, & Concertinas sold & repaired.

Instruments bought, sold or exchanged. Fancy Walking sticks   Toys

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Exactly 10 minutes too late
From: pavane
Date: 10 Mar 08 - 12:56 PM

And I play concertina, that gets a mention too, as you say.

Large numbers of these broadsides are political parodies, of little interest now (Though I did see one which might still be used today, called Ten Little Ministers...)

But in the 30,000 times, that leaves plenty of good ones. For myself, I found the long-lost song (and deservedly so) which is clearly the basis for the Morris Dance called Beaux of London City, 'The Knowing Maccaroni outwitted'. And the William and Dinia from 1820 obviously disproves an old theory that the song was based on a murder from 1827.

You can also find the original song from which The Wild Rover is descended, in which most of the verses are quite recognisable.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Exactly 10 minutes too late
From: Little Robyn
Date: 10 Mar 08 - 02:56 PM

Then there's the Pam Ayres poem with a similar title. Not sure if I remember it properly at this hour of the morning.

I found a dead rat in the woodshed,
I found it at quarter to eight.
I tried to give it the kiss of life
But I'd left it ten minutes too late.

There you go then!
Robyn

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Exactly 10 minutes too late
From: GUEST,Chicken Charlie
Date: 10 Mar 08 - 06:41 PM

Pavane--

You mentioned missing ship disasters .....

A fellow I keep bumping into at open mics had two aunts who were on the Titanic. (Pause for sympathy .....)

Seems at the last port of call, White Star opened the ship up for public tours. The aunts at that time were locals, ever so thrilled when mummy and daddy took them to see the great liner--and then got off and waved good-bye as it sailed away.

By the same token, the gold in my wedding ring came out of Tut's tomb .......

.... which I had entered on a tour twenty minutes previously.

Cheese it! The thread creep police!!!!!

CC

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Exactly 10 minutes too late
From: pavane
Date: 11 Mar 08 - 02:56 AM

Truth is stanger than fiction, they say.

It is true that a friend of mine (and a fellow ex-member of Dubai-Sharjah Morris) was late at the airport on one occasion in Pakistan and missed his plane - the PIA one that blew up.

Some years later, he was living in Poole, and missed his train to London - which was involved in a famous and fatal crash.

So it DOES happen.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Exactly 10 minutes too late
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 11 Mar 08 - 03:06 PM

I missed that disastrous Kings Cross tube-station fire simply because I didn't go to work that day. That escalator at that time is EXACTLY the one I had to use.