Origins: Personal Friend of Mine

Subject: Origins: Personal Friend of Mine
From: Joybell
Date: 11 Jun 07 - 06:53 PM

There are many hits for this phrase. Some of them are indeed fragments of this song. None, that I can find, tells me about a complete song with this title.
It looks like a fragment that has become attached to the college version parody of "Minnie the Mermaid". But -- It sure sounds like a different song and I can't help thinking that it once was. The whole Mermaid idea seems to get lost in the second half.

Here's how True-love learned it in the 1950s - in America.
(Some versions have minor word differences and/or changes to the line-order in the second part.)

Minnie the Mermaid - parody version

Oh, what a time I had with Minnie the Mermaid,
Down at the bottom of the sea;
Down among the corals, Minnie lost her morals
Gee but she was good to me.
Many's the night beneath the pale moonlight,
In her seaweed bungalow,
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust
Two twin beds only one was mussed.

Well, you can easily see she's not my sister,
'Cause my sister's too refined
And you can easily see she's not my sweetheart,
'Cause I never showed my sweetie such a helluva good time.
Well, you can easily see she's not my mother,
'Cause my mother's 49.
She's just an innocent kid
She never cared what she did;
She's a personal friend of mine
(She does my laundry), a personal friend of mine.

Puzzled. Can anyone shed any light?
Cheers, Joy

Subject: Lyr Add: SHE'S A PERSONAL FRIEND OF MINE
From: Joe_F
Date: 11 Jun 07 - 09:36 PM

The text in _The New Song Fest_ (1958) is pretty much your "fragment" rearranged:

You can easily see she's not my mother,
'Cause my mother's over forty-nine.
You can easily see she's not my sister,
'Cause I never showed my sister such a wonderful time.
You can easily see she's not my sweetheart,
'Cause my sweetheart's too refined.
She's just a slip of a kid, she didn't know what she did;
She's just a personal friend of mine.

It is accompanied by a wonderful drawing of him, her, the judge, and the cop. No attribution, but the tune is there.

Subject: RE: Origins: Personal Friend of Mine
From: Joybell
Date: 11 Jun 07 - 10:33 PM

Thanks Joe. Hildebrand remembers it from this source too. He had a copy of this publication. The copy we have now is -- Song Fest - 1948. (without "New" in the title) It has the fragment printed as you show it but the picture is not included. There is no sign of "Minnie the Mermaid". Does your 1958 copy have her, Joe? Hildebrand thinks he remembers that it did -- but he may be mistaken.

The original "Minnie the Mermaid" is a complete song. It's easy to find but not relevant to this question.

So -- no further along but thank you for your interest, Joe
Cheers, Joy

Subject: RE: Origins: Personal Friend of Mine
From: Joe_F
Date: 12 Jun 07 - 09:22 PM

Joybell: No, no Minnie in _The New Song Fest_ -- or at least, it's not in the index, and I didn't see it by riffling. However, Ed Cray's _Erotic Muse_ affords

Oh, what a time I had with Minnie the Mermaid
Down at the bottom of the sea.
Down amongst the corals where she lost her morals,
My, but she was good to me.
Oh, what a time I had with Minnie the Mermaid
Down in her seaweed bungalow.
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust;
Two twin beds and only one of them mussed.
Oh, what a gal was my Minnie the Mermaid,
Down at the bottom of the sea.

-- pretty much the same as yours. Why anyone would attach it to "Personal Friend" is beyond me.

Subject: RE: Origins: Personal Friend of Mine
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 12 Jun 07 - 11:43 PM

I have the 1961 edition (eleventh printing) of The New Song Fest and on page 71 is the song "Personal Friend of Mine," with the drawing and the same lines as above. I also have the Cray text. I scanned the pages and emailed them to you.

SRS

Subject: RE: Origins: Personal Friend of Mine
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 13 Jun 07 - 12:08 AM

BTW: I saved them as PDF files; if anyone else wants copies, PM me your email address and I'll send one or both to you.

SRS

Subject: RE: Origins: Personal Friend of Mine
From: Joybell
Date: 13 Jun 07 - 12:37 AM

Maggie -- Thank you so much. Hildebrand was so happy about getting that little drawing again. And we have an early date on the "Minnie the Mermaid" parody. Could it be that the two songs were linked as a medley by male-harmony singers, with no consideration for content?

It's interesting that 88 copies of "Minnie" variants were collected from the Midwest. Hildebrand remembers being told that "barbershop quartets" were particularly popular there.
Cheers, Joy
hildebrand here: mindful of the practice in elizabethan england of having a lute handy in the barbershop, so customers could have a twang while they were waiting, when i was in kabul in 1973 i went to get a haircut, and noticed that there was a rebab hanging on the wall of the shop. when i expressed interest in the instrument, the barber took it down and handed it to me, urging me to have a go, so i tried a bit of finger-picking on it, to the amusement of the barber and the other customers.
H

Subject: RE: Origins: Personal Friend of Mine
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 13 Jun 07 - 10:22 AM

My son and I went to a lecture at UTA a couple of months ago, with Lucy Skeaping of the Early Music Show on Radio 3. She talked about broadside ballads, and the art on them was as significant as the songs (both being recycled over the years). So I'm not surprised that the little bit of art work is associated with your memory of this song.

I have tons more obscure and not so osbscure books here--it may appear elsewhere, but I haven't looked at some of these for a while. I did notice, as I put the Erotic Muse back on the shelf that it was sliding in beside The Puffin Song Book. Perhaps opposites attract?

Maggie

Subject: Lyr Add: A PERSONAL FRIEND OF MINE (from Jim Lowe)
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 07 Aug 13 - 09:28 AM

I found this version on Spotify. Jim Lowe's big hit was "Green Door" (1956).


A PERSONAL FRIEND OF MINE
As recorded by Jim Lowe on "Rock-a-Chicka"

(Who's that girl? Who's that girl?)

You can easily see she's not my mother,
'Cause my mother's over forty-nine.
You can easily see she's not my sister,
'Cause I never showed my sister such a wonderful time.
You can easily see she's not my cousin,
'Cause my cousin's too refined.
She's just a pretty little gal, a wonderful pal.
She's a personal friend of mine. (Yes, sir!)

Oh, you can easily see she's not my auntie,
'Cause my auntie's really quite a bore.
You can easily see she's not my grandma,
'Cause my grandma doesn't get around the town any more.
You can easily see she's not my teacher,
'Cause my teacher's still in school.
She's just a pretty little gal, a wonderful pal..
She's a personal friend of mine.

You can easily see she's not my cousin,
'Cause my cousin's too refined.
She's just a pretty little gal, a wonderful pal
She's a real good friend (a real good friend).
She's a very close friend. (She's a very close friend.)
She's a personal friend of mine.