What did your Dad used to sing?

Subject: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Bert
Date: 27 Jan 08 - 06:30 PM

I'll start with one my Dad sang...

Let's sing the songs the Father used to sing
While we're at a party lets be gay and hearty
come Lads and Lasses
Lift up your glasses
join in the chorus, let it go
So, let's sing the songs that Father used to sing
years and years ago.

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: GUEST,wordy
Date: 27 Jan 08 - 06:48 PM

"Marta, rambling rose of the wildwood"
"Buddy, can you spare a dime"

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Alice
Date: 27 Jan 08 - 06:55 PM

The Rose of Tralee

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: LesB
Date: 27 Jan 08 - 06:56 PM

Nothing!

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Leadfingers
Date: 27 Jan 08 - 07:04 PM

Hymns !! He was head choir boy at the Birmingham Parish church

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: AllisonA(Animaterra)
Date: 27 Jan 08 - 07:07 PM

TIME for breakfast! TIME for breakfast! Time for breakfast! time for breakfast! time for break-fast!
Tune: Halleluia chorus


To the tune of one of Bach's organ fugues (not sure which one, but the tune beings "do mi sol, re fa la":
Being have (to rhyme with "wave")
Being have
Oh, everyone is being have!

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Brendy
Date: 27 Jan 08 - 07:11 PM

'McAlpine's Fusileers', and 'The Rose Of Arranmore'.

But my father also had a great wealth of monologues, and at Christmas Parties and the like, he could always be counted on to give a rendition of some Robert Servis: 'Dangerous Dan McGrew', and 'The Cremation of Sam McGee', especially.

A lovely man.

B.

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: GUEST,Dani
Date: 27 Jan 08 - 07:15 PM

"Two and two are four
four and four are eight
eight and eight are sixteen
sixteen and sixteen are thirty-two". I have a super-early memory of this being sung over my crib or bed.

Also, a song with many parts that I've never found anyone else to sing with:

"crank chisel, chisel,
crank chisel, chisel"

with

"whoop, whoop WHOOP,
whoop, whoop WHOOP"

and various other parts, sung together.

Dani

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Sorcha
Date: 27 Jan 08 - 07:22 PM

Bob's Got a Swing Band in Heaven
The Holy City
Danny Boy
Filipino Baby
Rainbow at Midnight
Day-O/Banana Boat Song
Jamaica Farewell

Others of the same ilk.

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: vectis
Date: 27 Jan 08 - 07:45 PM

Too many to list he left me 5 tapes full of songs he'd recorded at home.

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 27 Jan 08 - 07:49 PM

My dad only sang two songs to me --and I still sing them today. One was "the Mermaid"; t'other was (I found later) D.J.O'Malley's "The Tenderfoot"

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Jon Bartlett
Date: 27 Jan 08 - 09:01 PM

One verse of "When Father painted the parlor (you couldn't see pa for paint)" and

There is a happy land, far far away
Where the little piggies run, three times a day
Oh, you ought to see them run
When they see the farmer come
Cutting slices off their bum
Three times a day.

and one small piece of recitation: a vulgar parody of George Sim's "It Was Christmas Day in the Workhouse".

Norman Francis Bartlett, born Cardiff 26 January 1912, died Worthing 8 December 1985.

Jon Bartlett

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Amos
Date: 27 Jan 08 - 09:22 PM

Some Yale glee material. One he spontaneously came up with only once, on a rare family vacation:

"The Pope he leads a jolly life!
He's free from every care and strife.
He drinks the best of Rhenish wine!
I would the Popes gay life were mine.


The Sultan better pleases me.
He's free from care as he can be.
With fifty damsels for a wife!
Oh, I would have the Sultan's life!!

Oh when my sweetie kisses me,
\'Tis then the Sultan I would be.
But when good Rhenish wine I tope,
Why then I'd rather be the Pope!

He also taught me Buddy Bolden, the Sheik of Araby, Five Foot Two, and a number of other raggy piano tunes.


A

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Rapparee
Date: 27 Jan 08 - 09:29 PM

On Wisconsin
The Notre Dame Victory March
When Irish Eyes Are Smiling
The Caissons Go Rolling Along
The Air Corps Song
Too-ra-loo-ra-loo-ra

and a host of others. Whatever took his fancy.

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: oldhippie
Date: 27 Jan 08 - 09:36 PM

Dad didn't sing but he played the accordion.

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Kent Davis
Date: 27 Jan 08 - 10:02 PM

"You get a Line" (The Crawdad Song")

Kent

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: katlaughing
Date: 27 Jan 08 - 10:13 PM

you know! And I know, Bertdarlin'...your dad sang a lot more. Love that tape!

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 27 Jan 08 - 10:22 PM

INTERESTING - Question.

My father could not carry a pitch....none of family could....his oldest sister took instruction from a teacher that "promised" results....four lessons later the fee was refunded.

Luckily my musical ability came from the other side of the family....one with a RICH musical inheritance....something my siblings also missed.

But, back to the topic:
While working on a "difficult task" my father would either smoke a "Camel Unfiltered" or whistle "It Came Upon A Midnight Clear" and this tune always seemed "in-key" because of its "off-key" nuance.

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Dan Schatz
Date: 27 Jan 08 - 10:24 PM

"Little Birdie," "Sally Ann" and "Cripple Creek" - all played on his old Bruno and Son banjo.

Dan

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Jeri
Date: 27 Jan 08 - 10:53 PM

Hey Dan - I have an old Bruno banjo!

My dad was tone deaf, but he sang. 'There's a Long, Long Trail', 'Trail of the Lonesome Pine' (the one with the cow on the railroad tracks), 'Mademoiselle from Armentières' (the chorus). Most of the time, I only remember he sang the song if I hear it elsewhere.

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: GUEST,Julia
Date: 27 Jan 08 - 10:54 PM

The Whiffenpoof song (baaa, baaaa, baaa)
Aura Lee (which, as a curious child, i understood to be "orally" and wondered how a blackbird would sing any other way)
Shenandoah (I love your sweetie)

Then there was this little novelty- Anyone ever heard it?

When Pa was a little boy like me he used to go in swimmin',in swimmin'
He used to go 'way up the creek where there was no fear of women,of women
One day, one day,
One day some people came along and stole my pa's apparel (apparel)
He stayed in the water all day loo-oo-oong
And that night came home in a barrel, a barrel
A big.... round.... wooden..... barrel!
(The last "barrel" is shouted and accompanied with merciless tickling)
Took awhile to understand the barrel bit

My Dad also read us Greek myths and Beowulf as bedtime stories when I was 5 or 6

Cheers- Julia

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 27 Jan 08 - 11:50 PM

You name it, he sang it! Dad was a folk singer (John Dwyer). :)

When we were little he used to come to each of our rooms at bedtime and sing a few songs. Sometimes (often!) we were a captive audience for a new song he was learning. I knew lots of words to lots of songs very early, because of this. So, of course, I don't play a portable instrument or sing (unless I'm singing along and mostly drowned out, but I do know the words!)

SRS

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Sooz
Date: 28 Jan 08 - 02:36 AM

I'll take you home again Kathleen (my Mother's name) when he wanted something and Come into the garden Maud (my Mother's hated middle name) when he wanted to wind her up.

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Anne Lister
Date: 28 Jan 08 - 03:02 AM

Never heard my Dad sing a thing ... he did used to thump out "Donna e mobile" on the piano, though.

Anne

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: fat B****rd
Date: 28 Jan 08 - 03:14 AM

"Let the rest of the world go by"
"Out of town"

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Megan L
Date: 28 Jan 08 - 04:17 AM

I remember sitting on the bed in the back bedroom as he played, mum used to make him practice his saxaphone into the airing cupboard the melodeon in the hut but the banjo in the back bedroom.

Helleujah i'm a bum
Old faithful
Will the angels sing their songs for me

right up till just before he died aged 93 he could recite many long poems.

The shooting of Dan Magrew
The creation of sam magee
The green eye of the little yellow god
Tam o shanter

and his own poems

The golddigger
Macbeth
The easter egg


My mum on the other hand sang all the timewhnever she was working about the house you would here her sweet voice.

The star o Rabbie Burns
The rowan tree
Dark Lochnagar
Grannies hielan hame

these were joined by hymns and any other tunes that happened to flow through her head.

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Waddon Pete
Date: 28 Jan 08 - 04:51 AM

My Dad didn't sing much, but boy...could he recite! He had his own versions of many famous poems and was especially fond of "The Lays of Ancient Rome". He also liked to mix the poems up or come out with strange quotes such as:

"Look thou, stand within the arras, and when I stamp my foot upon the bosom of ground, rush forth! But he rushed fifth and lost all his beer money!"

Dad played the piano well, and had a wide repertoire.

Twas Mum who was the singer.

Best wishes,

Peter

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: GUEST,baz parkes
Date: 28 Jan 08 - 04:58 AM

Something I've never heard elsewhere...but I suspect picked up from the Americans he served with in WW2

You can roll a silver dollar down a rusty road
And it will roll roll roll
Because its round round round

No woman knows what a good man has until she brings him down

Then I forget until the corus which went

Listen my honey listen to me
I want you to understand
That as a silver dollar goes from hand to hand
A woman goes from man to man

Any ideas?

Baz

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 28 Jan 08 - 05:31 AM

I learned these songs at my fathers' knee.... we were too poor to afford paper so he wrote them on his knee.

I learned 'When this bloody war is over' and a jolly little ditty entitled 'The Guinea Pig Song'..

How can you tell when a guinea pig is pleased
if he ain't got a tail to wag.
All other animals you will find,
have got a little tail stuck on behind.
If they'd only put a tail on a guinea pig
and finished off a decent job,
the price of the animal would then go up,
from a guinea up to thirty bob!

He told us he won a prize for singing, the prize was a gobstopper.

LTS

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Banjiman
Date: 28 Jan 08 - 05:46 AM

My Dad didn't sing....he played the accordion, and the dog sang along though.

Accordions still don't sound right to me without a dog howling along...........

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Newport Boy
Date: 28 Jan 08 - 05:50 AM

My dad had just a few songs - Liz's Guinea Pig Song was one.

The one I most remember was The Miner's Dream of Home - "The bells were ringing the old year out, and the new year in".

And one short poem:

WATER

Pure water is the finest drink
That man to man may bring.
But who am I, that I should have
The best of everything?
Let prelates revel at the pump,
Peers at the pond make free,
But whisky, wine or even beer
Is good enough for me!

Sixty years later, I understand it better!

Phil

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Roger the Skiffler
Date: 28 Jan 08 - 06:17 AM

If you were the only girl in the world
Bless 'em all (RAF version)
RIP, Ivor
24.8.16-21.12.07

RtS

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Sir Roger de Beverley
Date: 28 Jan 08 - 06:27 AM

The miner's dream of home

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: catspaw49
Date: 28 Jan 08 - 07:06 AM

Its come up before here, but I'd put my Dad up against anyone when it came to partially remembered song lyrics and poems. Now he did know a lot of them but mostly he remembered only a verse here or a line there and in all cases as they suited his needs which were to supply his somewhat off the wall sense of humor (Y'all understand now?).

He'd combine this with that or quite annoyingly (this'll be familiar too) latch onto something and beat it to death until he had a great laugh over it, leaving my Mom and I groaning and in pain. Plus there were certain key words which would trigger some piece of a poem or a half of a song verse (or chorus) or some inane piece of wacky pseudo folklore.

Ya' know, all in all, I really never had a chance...............................................

Spaw

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: GUEST
Date: 28 Jan 08 - 07:25 AM

my dad's a great trad singer but has never sang outside the house. He brought me to fleadhs and seisuins the length and breadth of Ireland and taught me numerous songs - i don't even have a recording of him though and now he says he's too old to remember any!

his favourites were;

the jolly tinker
lough erne's shore
the young servant man

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: rich-joy
Date: 28 Jan 08 - 07:45 AM

Only ones I can now recall are :
The Words Are in My Heart ("My dear, I love you so, and even though I can't say it, the words are in my heart ......")
and
Wyoming Lullaby (chorus starts "Go to sleep my baby, close those pretty eyes .....")
Mum occasionally sang stuff like "O Tannenbaum" and "Song of the Volga Boatmen" and "De Lorelei" though ......


Cheers, R-J

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: GUEST,Granny in Wales
Date: 28 Jan 08 - 08:39 AM

I don't know where this song came from but my Dad used to sing it - the scenario, presumably is that the rent-collector has come, mother has no money and he is issuing threats, one of the children sings:

Please don't burn our shit-house down
Mother has promised to pay
Father's away on the ocean blue
And sis in the family way
Brother dear has gonorrhea
O times is f***ing hard
So please don't burn our shit-house down
Or we'll have to shit in the yard.

RIP Ivor 10.1.22-28.5.07

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Surreysinger
Date: 28 Jan 08 - 08:51 AM

Baz "Any ideas?" Silver Dollar was certainly sung by the Springfields in the pre-Dusty days... I have an LP somewhere which has that track on it... unfortunately I can't lay my hands on it at the moment, but as far as I can recall I think it was listed as "Traditional". Googling for it, I found one site which quoted quite a few variations of the words, and suggested that the song dated from around 1907.

As to what songs my father sang - quite a few, but the only things which stick in the memory are his stunning trumpetless trumpet imitations, and his singing me to sleep as a tiny tot with "Goodnight Irene" - I didn't get to hear the full words until I was in my twenties ... probably just as well, as they're not really kiddies bedtime stuff [grins]. And my mother never sang that I can recall ... I think she was the subject of one of those teachers at school who dent your confidence by criticising !!

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Bert
Date: 28 Jan 08 - 10:13 AM

Baz, here's the lyrics to roll a silver dollar

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Bert
Date: 28 Jan 08 - 10:23 AM

Katmeluv, I remember your Dad singing Ace Down in a Hole for us on Mudcat Radio.

Gargoyle, my Dad was off pitch quite a lot but it never stopped him singing. His last wife said he was like a radio that you couldn't turn off.

SRS, if you know all those songs it's a shame not to sing them. Get out there and share them with your friends.

Spaw, LOL, that does explain a lot.

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: GUEST,Phil B
Date: 28 Jan 08 - 10:43 AM

My dad didn't sing but he played fiddle in a local dance band called
'Arthur Chalice and his black diamonds' They played big dance engagements at weekends and there was a tune set which was always announced as 'something for the scots!!' This was a very sophisticated big band arrangement (possibly from Victor Sylvester) of well known tunes such as 'Flowers of Edinburgh' and 'Cock of the north/Athol Highlanders' etc. The Scots in the audience would leap to the floor and generally brighten up the strict tempo proceedings.
I think this is my earliest memory of trad dance music Incidently, Bob Cann was of course well known in the area as the best purveyor of 'Country Dance' music.

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Mooh
Date: 28 Jan 08 - 11:20 AM

No pop from Pop, but a million things from humourous songs of the early 20th century, to serious classical, to hymns and anthems (very Anglican), to stuff he wrote for church liturgy, choirs, and childrens groups. Even heard him and some opera singer demonstrate singing harmony a semi-tone apart without screwing up. Besides sightsinging like a pro, he could improvise various styles of harmony.

After several strokes of varying severity, Dad became virtually mute. Days, even weeks, would pass where he'd barely utter a sound, much to Mum's sadness. When he was well enough to be taken out, off to church they went. Dad struggled to his feet and sang as if he'd never stopped. It seems it's a different part of the brain that operates singing. Of course, in church everyone thought it was some sort of miracle, and in a way it was. It so happened that he still remembered entire hymns, bass lines, melodies, words, just as he always had. We knew then that inside the newly quiet man there was still the memory that used to amaze us with its ability and sheer volume. Until the day he died, Mum continued to play music for him, read to him, hold one way conversations with him, and take him about on daily life. I'm sure it sustained both their lives.

I have 45 year old memories as clear as this morning of rolling around in our little skiff on the waves of Georgian Bay, going to and from fishing spots, with Dad loudly singing, "...we fired salutes at the captain's boots in the teeth of the blooming gale...". What a man he was, and I can't begin to describe how I miss him!

Thanks for the memories.

Peace, Mooh.

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: GUEST,Neil D
Date: 28 Jan 08 - 11:43 AM

Little Redwing
Big Rock Candy Mountain
I Went Down To Derby Town

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: GUEST,The Mole Catcher's Apprentice
Date: 28 Jan 08 - 12:09 PM

Painting Box - The Incredible String Band was a favourite with me and my sisters, and still such a lovely song.

Charlotte

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 28 Jan 08 - 12:17 PM

I've no actual memory of my father as he died when I was two, but one day my mother was round at the house & I'd just bought Bob Robert's Topic LP Songs from the Sailing Barges, and thought it might be the sort of thing she's enjoy. After Bell-bottom Trousers she said "Your father used to sing that." Gave me a bit of a glow I can tell you, though I've never actually sang it myself.

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: maire-aine
Date: 28 Jan 08 - 12:17 PM

"The Preacher & the Bear"

"Oh, Lord, if you can't help me, don't you help that grizzly bear."

Did Phil Harris record that?

Also, something about "3 Children in the Fire-y Furnace" and "Jonah in the belly of the whale"

Maryanne

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: GUEST,baz parkes
Date: 28 Jan 08 - 01:15 PM

Bert and Surreysinger

Thanks a lot...not a dry seat in the house!!

(One of Dave Sealey's best lines I feel...)

I can hear him now

(Dad,that is, not Dave...but come to think of it...)

Cheers m'dears

Baz

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: GUEST,Greycap
Date: 28 Jan 08 - 01:19 PM

Wreck on the Highway - Roy Acuff
Footprints in the snow - Bill Monroe
stuff like that....

Subject: Lyr Add: AN OVERWORKED ELOCUTIONIST (Carolyn Wells
From: Bill D
Date: 28 Jan 08 - 01:19 PM

I can't remember him ever singing a note....but many silly poems & recitations...

like

AN OVERWORKED ELOCUTIONIST
Carolyn Wells

ONCE there was a little boy, whose name was Robert Reece;
And every Friday afternoon he had to speak a piece.
So many poems thus he learned, that soon he had a store
Of recitations in his head, and still kept learning more.

And now this is what happened: He was called upon, one week,
And totally forgot the piece he was about to speak!
His brain he cudgelled. Not a word remained within his head!
And so he spoke at random, and this is what he said:

"My Beautiful, my Beautiful, who standest proudly by,
It was the schooner Hesperus—the breaking waves dashed high!
Why is the Forum crowded? What means this stir in Rome?
Under a spreading chestnut tree there is no place like home!

"Whence come these shrieks so wild and shrill? Across the sands o' Dee?
Lo, I will stand at thy right hand and keep the bridge with thee!
For this was Tell a hero? For this did Gessler die?
'The curse is come upon me!' said the Spider to the Fly.

"When Britain first at Heaven's command said, 'Boatswain, do not tarry;
The despot's heel is on thy shore, and while ye may, go marry.'
Let dogs delight to bark and bite the British Grenadiers,
Lars Porsena of Clusium lay dying in Algiers!

"The sea! the sea! the open sea! Roll on, roll on, thou deep!
Maxwelton braes are bonny, but Macbeth hath murdered sleep!
Answer me, burning shades of night! What's Hecuba to me?
Alone stood brave Horatius! The boy—oh! where was he?

"When Freedom from her mountain height cried, Twinkle, little star,
Shoot if you must this old grey head, King Henry of Navarre!
Roll on, thou deep and dark blue castled crag of Drachenfels,
My name is Norval, on the Grampian Hills, ring out, wild bells!

"If you're waking, call me early, to be or not to be,
The curfew must not ring to-night. Oh, woodman, spare that tree!
Charge, Chester, charge! On, Stanley, on! And let who will be clever!
The boy stood on the burning deck, but I go on forever!"

His elocution was superb, his voice and gestures fine;
His schoolmates all applauded, as he finished the last line.
"I see it doesn't matter," Robert thought, "what words I say,
So long as I declaim with oratorical display!"

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Geordie-Peorgie
Date: 28 Jan 08 - 01:22 PM

When he wez singin' te me (aah wez a bairn) he sang "Little White Duck" and he made aall the noises instead for sayin' 'quack' or 'croak' - Aah wez fascinated as he sat at the pianna and sang lots of kiddy songs but THAT one stuck in mind.

He did a lot of 'concert party' type gigs and could yodel reet canny and wez a big fan of Slim Whitman etc

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: catspaw49
Date: 28 Jan 08 - 01:50 PM

Mooh.....That's a beautiful memory my friend and thanks for bringing it here.

Spaw

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Mrs Scarecrow
Date: 28 Jan 08 - 01:52 PM

One of my greatest regrets is that I did not get into traditional folk music whilst my father was still alive. He was born in 1907 and his first commision at sea was on a sailing ship although it only lasted a few days before it got into trouble and he moved on to something else. He sang Leave her Johnny Leave her, Spanish Ladies and probably many others that I do not recall or didn't get to hear as my mother was strictly into clasical music and a lot of what my father sang would also have been considered inappropriate for children, I do recall the jug of punch and snippets of other drinking songs being sung to me from an early age which may explain a lot

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Mr Red
Date: 28 Jan 08 - 01:55 PM

dunno - he died when I was 9 months old. But from what I recall of family folklore - singing never figured.

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: scouse
Date: 28 Jan 08 - 02:10 PM

A very drunken version of "Barefoot Days." the Harmonies outside the pub with his mates still bring back memories.. Vin Garbutt was right when he sung "they don't write them like that anymore." Virtually all the words where true!!!
As Aye,
Phil.

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Fidjit
Date: 28 Jan 08 - 02:14 PM

When Father Papered The Parlour
Any Umberellas
Underneath The Arches
White Cliffs of Dover
Run Rabit Run

My job as a kid on a Friday after school was to go get the Acumulator from the cycle shop where it had been re-charged, so's we could listen to the wireless at the week-end. There was "Good Evening. This is Henry Hall speaking and Tonight is my Guest night".
Then on Sunday lunch time it was Wakey! Wakey! Billy Cotton Band show with Allan Breeze and he'd sing.
I've got a Luvly Bunch of Coconuts

Chas

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: AnCailínÉireannach
Date: 28 Jan 08 - 02:21 PM

My native town Drumlish is a favourite of my dads

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Partridge
Date: 28 Jan 08 - 02:56 PM

My Dad and I used to sing loads of gilbert and sullivan together. The first folk song I ever sang I sang with him - the keeper. It was at a family wedding and everyone did a turn. When I visited him he used to put on the alexander brothers and we'd sing the northern lights of old aberdeen, and his favourite the road and the miles to dundee - it reminded him of my mum - who he missed so much.

We also sang lots of old white heather club stuff and the corries, The tears pour down my face as I write this , but they are such happy, happy memories. Singing is not the same without him. It was what we did together - we sang

Pat xx

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: frogprince
Date: 28 Jan 08 - 03:04 PM

Dad sang pretty decently, but very, very seldom around home; about all I remember is an occasional scrap of "It ain't agonna rain no more". He sang regularly in church, and joined in a quartet on rare occasions. I know of any number of songs he enjoyed listening to, but so far as what he especially liked to sing, "Near the Cross" would probably be at the top of the list.

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 28 Jan 08 - 03:16 PM

My Dad was incapable of singing. He could not carry a tune to save his life.

He could whistle reasonably well, though...and he knew about 4 tunes on the piano: "You Are My Sunshine" and a handful of others like that.

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Tootler
Date: 28 Jan 08 - 04:16 PM

My Dad didn't sing, but he did listen to a lot of Beethoven.

My Mother and Grandmother both sang a lot round the house, though my Mother stopped in later years. You only had to say something and they would come up with an appropriate song. I can only remember two for certain now but what they sang was a mixture of traditional and popular songs of the day. The two I remember them singing for sure were

Kerry Dances and
Katie Bairdie

I got a set of words for Katie Bairdie and would love to have words for the Kerry Dances as I still have the tune in my head. The first two lines I remember were

Oh, the days of the Kerry Dances
Oh, the ring of the piper's tune

That's all I remember.

Geoff

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Amos
Date: 28 Jan 08 - 04:42 PM

Subject: Lyr Add: O THE DAYS OF THE KERRY DANCING (Molloy)
From: Alice - PM
Date: 30 Jul 99 - 11:11 AM

Here are the 4 verses altogether. The third verse changes keys and slows down (piu lento) and also changes tune. The first two verses are bright and lively (vivace), and the fourth verse, same tune as the first two, is sung lento, sadly, in the beginning, then speeds up at "when the boys". I considered singing this in my program at the Victorian Ball last week, but decided to do "The Lass With the Delicate Air" instead. As it turned out, I didn't have time to sing The Lass.

O THE DAYS OF THE KERRY DANCING
words and music by James Lyman Molloy
1837-1909


1. O the days of the Kerry Dancing,
O the ring of the piper's tune!
O for one of those hours of gladness
Gone, alas! like our youth, too soon.
When the boys began to gather,
In the glen of a summer night,
And the Kerry piper's tuning
Made us long with wild delight;


O, to think of it, O to dream of it,
Fills my heart with tears.
O the days of the Kerry Dancing,
O the ring of the piper's tune!
O for one of those hours of gladness
Gone, alas! like our youth, too soon.


2. Was there ever a sweeter colleen,
In the dance than Eily Moore!
Or a prouder lad than Thady,
As he boldly took the floor:
"Lads and lasses to your places,
Up the middle and down again,"
Ah, the merry hearted laughter
Ringing thro the happy glen.


O, to think of it, O to dream of it,
Fills my heart with tears.
O the days of the Kerry Dancing,
O the ring of the piper's tune!
O for one of those hours of gladness
Gone, alas! like our youth, too soon.


(piu lento, tune & key change)
3. Time goes on, and the happy years are dead.
And one by one, the merry hearts have fled.
Silent now is the wild and lonely glen,
Where the bright glad laugh
Will echo ne'er again.
Only dreaming of days gone by,
Fills my heart with tears!


(back to same tune as verse 1 and 2)
4. Loving voices of old companions
Stealing out of the past once more,
And the sound of the dear old music,
Soft and sweet as in days of yore:
When the boys began to gather
In the glen of a summer night,
And the Kerry piper's tuning
Made us long with wild delight;


O, to think of it, O to dream of it,
Fills my heart with tears.
O the days of the Kerry Dancing,
O the ring of the piper's tune!
O for one of those hours of gladness
Gone, alas! like our youth, too soon.





--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Post - Top - Forum Home - Printer Friendly - Translate
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Subject: RE: TUNE ADD - NEED LYRICS: The Kerry Dances
From: Alice - PM
Date: 30 Jul 99 - 11:15 AM

By the way, my source is the sheet music published by Warner Brothers, who now own the copyright. They are posted here for educational puposes only.

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: The Vulgar Boatman
Date: 28 Jan 08 - 05:03 PM

I think eclectic is the right word - G&S, hymns, standards of all descriptions including the Kerry Dances, and a whole repertoire from canteen "Sod's Operas" from wartime service, Moving Father's Grave to Build a Sewer (mostly delivered in a flawless tenor voice), and recitations - the Farting Contest was a favourite... the strange thing is, we don't regard this lot as folk music. Or do we?

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Irish sergeant
Date: 28 Jan 08 - 05:18 PM

Great question!
My father played several instruments (Guitar, banjo, piano and fiddle that I remember and Bagpipes!) But what did he sing.
Miss Otis.
Shutters and boards
SCotland the Brave
really too many songs to remember but it certainly is fun trying!. Neil

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Bert
Date: 28 Jan 08 - 05:29 PM

...we don't regard this lot as folk music. Or do we?...

We do here Boatman.

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Beer
Date: 28 Jan 08 - 05:43 PM

Melancholy Baby
Down the River of Golden Dreams
Smile Awhile
Ever in Dreams (not sure here if title is correct.)

And lots more.
Beer (adrien

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Tootler
Date: 28 Jan 08 - 05:43 PM

Here's some words for Katie Bairdie. It's a children's song and there are other verses out there. I will be happy to get more.

Katie Bairdie
Trad
Tune "Shirramuir"

Katie Bairdie hid a coo',
Black and white aboot the moo'
Wisna that a dainty coo'?
Dance Katie Bairdie.

Katie Bairdie hid a cat,
She could catch baith moose and rat;
Wisna that a dainty cat?
Dance Katie Bairdie.

Katie Bairdie hid a hen,
She could lay baith but an' ben;
Wisna that a dainty hen?
Dance Katie Bairdie.

Katie Bairdie hid a wife,
She could use baith fork an' knife;
Wisna that a dainty wife?
Dance Katie Bairdie.

Katie Bairdie hid a bairn,
Widna play when it cam' on rain;
Wisna that a dainty bairn?
Dance Katie Bairdie.

(Source. 101 Scottish Songs ed. Norman Buchan)

Geoff

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Rapparee
Date: 28 Jan 08 - 05:43 PM

Thinking on it, he also sang

Turkey in the straw
Peanut sat on a railroad track
Hallejulia I'm a bum
Stardust (usually whistled)
Red River Valley

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: GUEST,lyndie
Date: 28 Jan 08 - 06:20 PM

When we were driving in the car my parents used to harmonize to:

When You Wore a Tulip
Tell Me Why
and Lyndie (Sweet As The Sugar Cane)

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: astro
Date: 28 Jan 08 - 06:32 PM

I don't have memories of my dad, but as a dad I've made it my mission
to sing everything I could so long as a silly dance could be included.

It made me a happy man when I saw my daughter do a silly clog across the
floor to pinch my cheek...the traditions do go on...

astro in LA

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 28 Jan 08 - 07:04 PM

My father wasn't very musical. I only remember a couple of snatches:

"The cuckoo, she's a pretty bird. She sings as she flies.
She brings us good tidings and tells us no lies."

He sang it to the tune I now know as "My Horses Ain't Hungry."

Also:

"Horsy, hold your tail up, hold your tail up, hold your tail up.
Oh, horsy, hold your tail up. Keep the sun out o' my eyes."

He sang that to the tune of "Ach Du Lieber Augustine."

In each case, I think he only ever sang one verse. I wasn't very interested in those days. I wish I had asked him if he knew more.

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: GUEST,Seonaid
Date: 28 Jan 08 - 09:43 PM

Dad comes from a very musical family, but never sang much. In WWI he was part of his "fleet orchestra," a bunch of guys with ukuleles and one clarinet -- they billed themselves as "Ike Eisely and the 99 Nasty Nose-Pickers, singing 'Oh, You Booger'"! Wonder what that was like? He never has given up the secret. Years later, after seeing "The Ballad of Cat Ballou," he would occasionally break into a growly rendition of the theme song's opening line.
My mother, on the other, hand, is mostly tone-deaf, but always sang around the house. She was pretty much famous for drifting from one song into another one with a similar musical phrase; one of the best of these unplanned medleys was probably "Goldfinger... wider than a mile..."

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: iancarterb
Date: 28 Jan 08 - 09:55 PM

It's fun to read the whole thread and theorize on whose parents are/were what age. Many posts reminded me "Oh, yes, that too." The Captain and the Mermaid, The Pope, Eddystone Light, various Harry Lauder, Coney Island Baby, much Gilbert and Sullivan, Bless 'em All, A Capital Ship. My mother and father grew up on Cohan and Irving Berlin, but they learned a lot of songs from the Brit and Aussie and New Zealander sailors whom they hosted on Long Island on liberties during WWII, and long after Dad had died and she could barely remember who my sister and I were she still sang the chorus to Roll Me Over In the Clover to herself walking down the hallway. I always hope that, as is often said, the songs really ARE the last thing to go.

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: GUEST,Norval
Date: 28 Jan 08 - 10:08 PM

Bert, someone had a similar thought about Dad way back in 1921. The Baldwin Piano Company issued a small music folio "The Tunes Dad Whistled". Today we could substitute GrandDad for Dad in the title.

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: number 6
Date: 28 Jan 08 - 11:34 PM

My father once and a while would bring out his old beat up guitar (probably a Kay) and sing a bunch of Jimmy Rodger songs, yodelling and all. Why Jimmie Rodgers I haven't a clue. He would also get out on occassion his ukulele and sing a completely different tone of songs. The only one of those I recall was 'I Don't Want to Play in Your Yard', the rest were probably old collegiate type songs from the days of his youth. He died when I was quite young so I never really did get to know him. Never did know what happened to that old guitar or ukulele.

biLL

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Bryn Pugh
Date: 29 Jan 08 - 04:33 AM

I was fortunate that both my parents sang, me owl' feller usually when he was aled up, althought I was too young to realise it.

He died in 1951, before my 6th birthday, but 57 years on I can still see him and hear him sing

Ho-ro, my Nut-Brown Maiden

Me Nancy Tickled me Fancy, and

Me Father's the King of the Gypsies.

Don't get me started on the Old Girl - from her I learned She Moved thro' the Fair, Kelly from Killane, Oro ! Se do bheatha bhaile, Shall my soul pass thro' Old Ireland, The Little Toy Doggie is covered with rust, Little old Turf Cabin on the Hill, Amhrann na bhFianna, Moonlight in Mayo (vomit !) . . . etc.

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: GUEST
Date: 29 Jan 08 - 05:41 AM

What a wonderful thread! I love all of these answers. My Dad loved all those sentimental old Irish songs especially "Rose of Tralee" because my mother's name is Mary, and "Come Back, Paddy Reilly, to Ballyjamesduff" because his mother was born in Ballyjamesduff. He was a sort of one man folk process since he rarely remembered the words of songs and would make up others as he went along. But they would always rhyme and very often were stronger and better than the original. God, how I miss him.

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Schantieman
Date: 29 Jan 08 - 06:04 AM

My dad was a great singer - he was in a jazz band while he was in the army (1934 - 46) and learned lots of songs, some of which he passed on to me. These included,

It's a Long way to Tipperary
Pack up your Troubles
Take Me Back to Dear Old Blighty
I've Got Sixpence

...all of which were marching songs he learned as a soldier. Then there were the jazz songs, four of which he actually recorded on 78s in the 50s while he was courting my mother. These were

You Gotta Have Heart
The Nearness of You
When I Fall in Love
Out of Town

...and I sing the first three of these now. In fact I'm recording a couple of them on my current CD!

He died a few years ago. I don't miss him - he was a grumpy old bastard but a good singer! Bit like me really.

Steve

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: paula t
Date: 29 Jan 08 - 08:45 AM

My Dad used to sing "Scarlet Ribbons" to me. I loved it. He was hugely touched to hear Kathryn playing it on the piano the last time he came to visit.It's sentimental, but that's how Dads songs should be eh?

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: topical tom
Date: 29 Jan 08 - 09:15 AM

Dad almost never sang but the only song I remember was "The Wearin' O' The Green".Ironically enough, my father's ancestors were, for the most part, members of the Orange Lodge!I am not proud of that fact.

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Charmain
Date: 29 Jan 08 - 10:42 AM

Lots and lots of songs:
Lavenders Blue and Train Whistle Blowing when he's singing a small child to sleep...

Rattlin' Bog and Home, Boys, Home on long car journeys in the days when there was no other music to be had...

Dirty Old Town when he's been reminiscing about his childhood...

Wild Rover when he's had one to many...

Grey Funnel Line when he really should be off to bed now...

But he is most famed for his roaring renditions of O'Reilly's Daughter, Rawtenstall Annual Fair and Brother Sylveste - classics all!!

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Ythanside
Date: 29 Jan 08 - 11:46 AM

My old man sang almost constantly, and his repertoire varied according to how much money he had in his pocket at the time.
When flush he would be all 'Girls Were Made to Love and Kiss', 'Sweet Sixteen', 'Kathleen', 'Just a Little Love, a Little Kiss' and virtually anything optimistic from Richard Tauber or Frans Lehar's Viennese operettas.
Broke, and therefore rather melancholic, he would go through the card from Pagliacci to any other wrist-slitting, blood-and-gore opera that took his jaundiced fancy.

One song that I only ever heard him sing at New Year, and have never heard sung by anyone outside of my immediate family, was a rather short WWI number called 'The Bombing Raid'. The words, as I recall them, are as follows.

THE BOMBING RAID

Listen and I'll tell you,
How the Jocks spent their New Year,
They were standing in the trenches,
With the mud right up to here,
And soaking through, and through and through.
Aha, said Fritz, the time is right,
For the Jocks are fu' the noo,
So the plan was made for the bombing raid.
They were up against the men o' marmalade,
But if Fritz had only known,
That that trench held Dundee's own,
He would never, never made that bombing raid.

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: ClaireBear
Date: 29 Jan 08 - 12:11 PM

Where to start? It's been 22 years since he died, but I'll never forget. Any time of the day or night, Dad would pick up the mandolin or mandola and start in. I sang harmony, my two sisters came in on piano and melody respectively, and my brother on guitar. We had, erm, a wide range of material. Here are a few of our family favorites, to give you a vague idea of just how eclectic we were:

Twickenham Ferry
Lazybones
Santa Lucia
Jeannie with the Light Brown Hair
The Dying Hobo
La Golondrina
Poor Little Joe
La Marseillaise
Slap 'er Down Again, Paw
Lili Marlene
Green Grows the Ivy
Ymnos eis tin Eleftherian (the Greek national anthem)
Flow Gently Sweet Afton
Long Black Veil
Cancion Mixteca
Do Ye Ken John Peel?
The Whiffenpoof Song
Mean to Me (How Come You're So...)
Ach! du liebe Augustin
Father, Dear Father (Come Home with Me Now)
Lady Be Good
Malagueña Saleroza
Fratelli d'Italia (the Italian national anthem)
Adios Muchachos
Let the Rest of the World Go By

Thanks for helping me relive my misspent youth...
Claire

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Franz S.
Date: 29 Jan 08 - 12:38 PM

Only thing my dad ever sang to me was Joe Hill, according to him. I don't even remember that. Now he makes me sing it.

Luckily, almost everyone in my mother's family sang.

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: PeadarOfPortsmouth
Date: 29 Jan 08 - 12:46 PM

I remember that as a kid, my dad would sing "The Frozen Logger" with severe gusto, and would shake the windows by joining in with any Clancy Brothers chorus that was playing. Heck, I practically have to restrain him now when someone launches into "Holy Ground". ("Fine girl you are!")

Reading through some of the responses above, I'm even more attuned to how lucky I am. Both he and my mum are still around (thank God) and enjoy the fact I'm singing the music they played to us when we were kids.

Peter

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: lady penelope
Date: 29 Jan 08 - 05:19 PM

Getting my father to sing the whole of a song was the problem. We get lots of bits of songs. A lot of music hall stuff, some jazz, some really odd songs, show tunes, whatever came into his head. Plus Mad Mcgonagal poems and the like.

The only songs I remember him singing all the way through on a regular basis were the Bluebell song....

Bluebells are bluebells
Bluebells are blue
Bluebells are bluebells
'Cos Bluebells are blue..... Second verse! Bluebells are bluebells.... (you get the idea, I inflictged this song onto my mates at Towersey one year in revenge for someting, I forget what though....)

and a song I think is called The Indian Lullabye.

Down where the river Kiporee (?)
Empties its waters to the sea
Down where the bear in his lair doesn't care
If it rains or snows or shines
An indian squaw sang
To a baby on a straw mat
And she sang as she hummed as she crooned him this lullabye
Oh please don't cry
Go to sleep my little papoose
Go to sleep and slumber deep
Close your eyes, your big brown eyes
And soon you'll grow
For soon you will be hunting buffalo
You'll be a big chief some day
For soon you will be hunting buffalo
You'll be a big chief some day


He's a trumpet player really....

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Betsy
Date: 29 Jan 08 - 05:55 PM

I have a slight variation but similarity to Sooz , for some reason or other, after a pint or two ,my Dad used to sing "I'll take you home again Kathleen" but my mother would go crazy with him - My mum was called Annie.
I suppose it made things a lot easier when he resorted to playing the paper and comb. !!!

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Irish sergeant
Date: 29 Jan 08 - 08:21 PM

This thread got me thinking about some of the songs that Dad sang. I mentioned some above but I remember my Uncle LArry who like Dad has gone to the jam sessionin the sky and he sang a song
"Oh you'll neveer get to heaven in a PBY because the Godamn thing won't fly that high" That and "MAry-ann McCarthy" A lot of Army Air Corps songs Regards Neil

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: GUEST,Jay
Date: 30 Jan 08 - 03:43 AM

My Dad had a great baritone voice but sang nothing but Gilbert and Sullivan. He used to play all the comedy parts in the local operatic society. I remember bringing home an LP (long time ago now) of Ella Fitzgerald and in the interests of good taste I can't possibly tell you what he said! There was never any folk music in our house so I don't know where I got the bug. Perhaps from my mother singing pseudo folk songs with the W.I.

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 30 Jan 08 - 04:54 AM

Lady P - I think it was your answer to 'the worlds shortest folk songs' like 'Now listen as I sing of the Good ship Araldite, stuck fast in Plymouth Sound', or 'D'ye ken John Peel? No.'

But it might have been on the bus back from a gianting gig, to take our minds off the noise of your drunken sot of a brother hoiking up into a carrier bag hung over his ears.

LTS

Subject: Lyr Add: THE OLD SOW
From: GUEST,Edthefolkie
Date: 30 Jan 08 - 06:58 AM

About the only thing I remember my Dad (b. 1910) singing was

There was an old man and he had an old sow
    (snort) sow (whistle) sow (raspberry) Hi diddley dow,
There was an old man and he had an old sow,
    (repeat sound effects)
    Oh, Susanna's a funniful man
    (repeat sound effects)
    Susanna's a funniful man.

This old sow had three little pigs (etc).
They tried to get over the garden wall (etc).
They couldn't get over the garden wall (etc).

When I was little he used to reduce me to hysteria with this. I always thought he'd made it up...but it turns out it's a pukka (music hall?) song which is even on the Interweb. However my Dad seems to have learned a slightly corrupted Bourne, Lincs version.

He knew about Plough Monday too! I do wish he'd met Bob Copper - he'd have got on with him like a house on fire.

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Bryn Pugh
Date: 30 Jan 08 - 07:36 AM

Thank you, ClaireBear, for the reminder of 'Jeannie with the Light

Brown Hair', which was another one me owl' feller used to sing.

Probably an age thing - it was the best part of 60 years ago :-)

The Old Girl's favourite song was 'The Flower of Sweet Strabane'.

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: GUEST,Guest, (Percy)
Date: 30 Jan 08 - 05:53 PM

I called on my sweetheart Elizabeth Brown
She was having a bath and she wouldn't come down
I said slip something on and come down for a while
She slipped on the soap and came wearing a smile

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: kytrad (Jean Ritchie)
Date: 30 Jan 08 - 07:22 PM

Joe Bowers-

My name is Joseph Bowers; I have a brother Ike
I come from old Missouri- all the way from Pike.....a long 18th Century ballad. He knew and sang many more, too many to name here. The song he used to rock me to sleep with, was, The Uncloudy Day, a fairly modern hymn, but he knew and joined in all the Old Regular Paptist songs that were "lined out" at The Little Zion Church.

He always said he wasn't much of a singer, so he hardly ever sang solo, but would always join in if he knew the going song. He loved to play his dulcimer and would often play every verse of a long ballad (e.g. Barbry Ellen), never singing but thinking the words until the story (inside his head) was finished. Most singing, by one person, or family group in that time and place was unaccompanied. It seemed to take us a long time to put the two together.

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: TIA
Date: 30 Jan 08 - 10:24 PM

He sang nearly everything in "Songs of Man" - the one by Norman Luboff and Win Stracke (and painted or embroidered copies of the Paul Freeman illustrations onto various pieces of apparel). Gave me a copy when I left home in the 70's. I sang 'em all to our wee ones, and now he just gave copies to all three of the girls. Where the heck did he find 'em?

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Snuffy
Date: 31 Jan 08 - 08:57 AM

Lots of Bing Crosby and Irish stuff mostly - Mountains of Mourne, Galway Bay, Dear Old Donegal, Hey Patsy Fagan, Isle of Inisfree, Phil the Fluter's Ball, etc, etc.

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Bert
Date: 31 Jan 08 - 09:35 AM

Patsy Fagan & Phil the Fluter's Ball. WOW I haven't heard those since my Dad sang them.

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: bubblyrat
Date: 31 Jan 08 - 10:25 AM

"Green Grow the Rushes o ", but substituting " Brown Hatters " for "Brown Walkers "   ---I still do today--can't help it !!
also "The Lord's My Shepherd " ( we were both choristers, and sang in Chichester cathedral sometimes )


and ,after too much Friary Meux ( or other brews) , " There once was a monk of great renown, who shagged all the women in London town ".

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: GUEST,andy valentine
Date: 31 Jan 08 - 01:49 PM

Mary of Argyle and The Old Rustic Bridge

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: GUEST
Date: 31 Jan 08 - 02:03 PM

That's Proud Walkers, surely?

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: GUEST,Joseph de Culver City
Date: 31 Jan 08 - 02:06 PM

My granddad used to sing:

'Hallelujah, I'm a Bum'
'East Side, West Side'
'Casey Jones'
'Mary'

My dad used to sing:

'Sixteen Tons'
'Shenandoah'
'Just a Gigolo'

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: GUEST,Bob Coltman
Date: 31 Jan 08 - 04:22 PM

Let the Rest of the World Go By (his very favorite)
Shine On Harvest Moon
Quartermaster's Corps
Smile Awhile
Tavern in the Town
I've Got Sixpence
His primary occasions were on ski trips, when friend Harrison Taylor played guitar, and even better in his opinion was when his friend Jeff Herbert was playing our upright piano -- then he proved to have a big memory for 20s and 30s popular songs and would harmonize on them better than I ever could: When the Blue of the Night Meets the Gold of the Day, Lazybones, Old Man River, oh anything.
I think he was a bit surprised when I turned out to be a folkie, but rallied finely, and finding that what I wanted to do more than anything was go on song collecting trips in the south, he took me there two years running. Best memory I have of him.

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Harmonium Hero
Date: 02 Feb 08 - 12:52 PM

My parents both sang odd snatches of songs; I don't think I ever heard either of them come out with a complete song. In my mother's case, these were mostly poular songs of various eras, and some Irish songs, often learned from her mother or her aunt, who came from Clonmell. My father would come out with bits of operatic songs, often in parody form; bits of G&S: or army songs. Often these would be only one or two lines, sometimes with odd 'missing' or substituted words, which were obviously cleaned up for the sake of us children. One such was another version of 'Horsey, Keep Your Tail Up' (mentioned above by Jim Dixon). It had a different tune, which I can't identify. It ran:
All the monkeys in the zoo
Have their noses* painted blue;
Horsey, keep your tail up
Or I'll do the same to you
* I realised in later life that this was an example of the 'cleaning up' mentioned above, and that this word should have been... well, use your imagination.
Another was :
Do ye ken John Peel? Yes, I ken him very weel.
This one never went any further, and I always assumed it was just a silly rhyme. However, a serious stroke in 1998 (when he was in his 89th year) left him with vascular dementia - a form of dementia caued by brain damage after a stroke - which, among other things, altered some of his behaviour, including his sense of propriety. I looked after him until he died at 93, and it was only during this period that I waas treated to the full version, which went:
Do ye ken John Peel? Yes I ken him very weel.
Though he lies with his wife, but he canna get a feel,
'Cos she lies on her side, so he canna get a ride
And he rises with the horn in the morning.
He then turned to me and said: "That's a folk song - you should sing that!" (Vulgar Boatman please note!)
John Kelly.

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Desdemona
Date: 02 Feb 08 - 01:01 PM

"Stone Cold Dead in the Market!"

http://www.rhapsody.com/louisjordan/letthegoodtimesrolltheanthology19381953/stonecolddeadinthemarket/lyrics.html

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Janie
Date: 02 Feb 08 - 01:36 PM

Snippets of "May the Bird of Paradise Fly Up your Nose" was his favorite for many years.

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Fred Maslan
Date: 02 Feb 08 - 02:27 PM

Mostly my dad loved to listen to us sing. Tho on Friday nights and for "shaloshudos" or the third sabbath meal he would join in singing "zemirot" (sabbath songs). Occasionaly songs from his youth in Manchester England would pop up.

Rings on her fingers, bells on her toes
I'm 'enery the eighth I am
The Walloping window blind
etc.

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Suegorgeous
Date: 02 Feb 08 - 02:44 PM

Que sera, sera

Something about "...poor little lambs have lost their way(?), sheep(?)..." - anyone recognise this??!!

Cigarettes and whisky and wild wild women (tee hee!!)

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Rog Peek
Date: 02 Feb 08 - 03:43 PM

Land of Hope and Glory.

Umberella Man.

The Little Boy Who Santa Clause Forgot.

Sadly he's gone now.

Rog

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: AllanW
Date: 02 Feb 08 - 03:44 PM

My dad was actually in the audience when Lonnie Donegan recorded "My Old Man's A Dustman" at Doncaster's Gaumont Theatre, so I'm told. So I guess he sang that. Unless of course Donegan was like Christy Moore and didn't allow people to sing along!

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Snuffy
Date: 02 Feb 08 - 07:15 PM

Suegorgeous,

That's the WHIFFENPOOF SONG. When I was little (pre-school) it always made me cry for the poor lost lambs.

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Barbara
Date: 02 Feb 08 - 09:46 PM

My dad was born in 1917 and is still alive.
He sang us to sleep, he and Mom together often; and that was usually Toora Loora Loora
or Goodnight Irene (only the chorus)
or Tavern in the Town.
He also sings many hymns. He loves Let the Lower Lights be Burning,
and Come to the Church IN the Wildwood
South of the Border, Down Mexico Way
Wiffenpoof song
Miss Otis Regrets (yaas?)
The whole town's talking about the Brown Boys (he's a Brown)
the Cannibal King (his father sang it)
Polly Wolly Doodle (")
Froggy went a Courting (")
Don't send My boy to Harvard
I've got Sixpence
Oh What a loverly Bunch of Coconuts
Camptown Races
Tenting tonight
Whispering Hope (duet with Mom)
He walks With Me and He Talks with Me (")
And the Engine in the Ford Made the Wheels go Round

I'm sure there are more.
We sang in the car and we sang in the evenings at the lake. Mom played the pump organ and sang harmony; Grandpa played the one string fiddle he'd made. We sang in canoes and while hanging out the wash.

They still sing. I visited them a couple weeks ago in assisted living in Michigan. They've been married 63 years.

Blessings,
Barbara

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 03 Feb 08 - 03:20 AM

My dad is a little guy, five-foot-six tall; and about as nice an gentle a person as you'd ever hope to meet - and at the age of 88, he still has a strong, clear singing voice. Somehow, he ended up getting drafted into the Marines during WWII, and he was commissioned an officer just before the war ended. He sure was proud of having been a Marine, and the one song of his I remember above all was The Marine Hymn. I also remember him singing "Adeste Fideles" at Christmas, and suspecting he thought it had something to do with Semper Fidelis.*
A good man, that dad of mine - even if he WAS a Marine.

-Joe-

(*the motto of the U.S. Marine Corps)

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: GUEST,Jay
Date: 03 Feb 08 - 01:04 PM

When I was a child, dad used to sing me to sleep with little gems like: The Pub with no Beer, Tom Dooley, and (my favourite) Hang on the Bell, Nellie!

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Gulliver
Date: 04 Feb 08 - 06:57 PM

He couldn't really sing but played the piano--loved the boogy-woogy of Winifred Atwell, and when the Beatles became popular he did stride versions of their early songs. His favourite slow piece was "The Spinning-Wheel".

He died when we were kids. I think his favourite songs were "Goodbye (I'll Join the Legion...)" (his family were military men), "Making Whoopee", a couple of humorous Irish songs like "Reilly's Daughter" and "Maginty's Goat", "Frankie and Johnny", "Kevin Barry" (after he'd had a Guinness or two), some Nat King Cole songs (also my mother's favourite).

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: The Sandman
Date: 04 Feb 08 - 07:08 PM

The Bold Fenian Men.Joe Hill.

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Charley Noble
Date: 04 Feb 08 - 08:42 PM

Father really loved folksongs but the only one I remember him leading was Leadbelly's "Yellar Gal" which he did with gusto. When he died a few years ago at the age of 98 we had friends sing some of his favorite songs:

When You and I were Young, Maggie
Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out
New Wood (Gone, Gonna Rise Again)
Lonesome Dove

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 04 Feb 08 - 08:53 PM

Grab your coat and get your hat
leave your worries on the doorstep
just direct your feet
to the sunny side of the street

A fine voice my father had.

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Kaleea
Date: 05 Feb 08 - 04:19 PM

Daddy sang with his terrific Tenor voice too many songs to list here! He loved the old time, gospel, western, traditional, country, early rock, blues, what he referred to as "Western Swayng," and "Hank" was a category unto himself.
In addition to the love of singing, what Daddy best passed on to my brother & I (on this subject) was the preference to sing incorrect lyrics on purpose. My mother was not amused when he began teaching us, as small children, the old standard: "Gorilla My Dreams I Love You . . ." Had she been a cursing woman, she would have cursed. Instead, she vehemently told us not to imbibe--which made us all the more fervent to learn this unique method of lyricism. Yes, this talent which is appreciated by some, yet abhorred by others ensures that sing-a-longs with us will not soon be forgotten. A strategically placed incorrect word or two can bring down the house amongst the revelers at a party. As children, we especially loved when he would sing in the style of the Irish tenor:

My Bonnie leaned over the gas tank;
More clearly its contents to see;
I lighted a match to assist her;
Oh bring back my Bonnie to me.

& for those of you old enough to know the difference, one of my alltime favs:

"I'll be feeling you in all the old familiar places . . .

. . .& when the night is through,

         I'll be looking for some love,

                        & I'll be feeling---you"

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: GUEST,sandynewlap
Date: 05 Feb 08 - 04:28 PM

As a lullaby, my Dad sang:

Theres a long, long trai a winding
Into the land of my dreams
Where the nightengale is singing
And the pale moon beams
Theres a long, long night awaiting
Until my dreams all come true
Till the day that I'll be walking
Down that long, long trail with you.

That's all there was. Anybody know any more verses?

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: janemick
Date: 05 Feb 08 - 05:09 PM

We (mum, dad & elder sister) all used to sing in the car.
I was interested to see that Schantieman and Bob Coltman both included
I've Got Sixpence

In this song we used to sing the lines:
"happy as the day when the airman gets his pay
rolling rolling rolling rolling home, blind drunk!"
though I think most people sing soldier rather than airman. Something to do with him being in the RAF I suppose.

We also sang:
The Quartermasters Store
Ilkley Moor baht tat
Billy Boy

Got me interested in singing from an early age...

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Forsh
Date: 05 Feb 08 - 08:26 PM

Forsh the 1st, as I recall, was always singing, but the first one I recall him singing, and making us sing, was "When I was a little bitty baby, my mama would a-rock me in ma cradle.." etc.
He was from Ruddy NORTHALLERTON for Chrissake!
He also used to do a fine rendition of the Bernard Cribbins thing, "Right Said Fred" Loved that one, as he put on the Cockney Accent, which to me, as a Geordie, was quite hilarious in 1962/3 (?)
I only hope some of what I sing stays with my children & grandchildren.

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 05 Feb 08 - 08:44 PM

This thread says more about the posters than their dads, especially their ages! I find it a bit worrying that I recognise a lot the songs that their Dads were singing as being of my generation!

My Dad, now over 90, used to sing:
Here's to the good old whisky, drink it down, down, down, (x2)
Here's to the good old whisky,
That makes you so frisky,
Here's to the good old whisky, drink it down.

Chorus:
Drink it down, drink it down,
By the light of the silvery moo-oo-oo-oon,
Happy shall I be with the bottle on my knee,
And the shadow of the glasses on the wall.

And many other verses about other alcoholic beverages, even though my Dad was not really a big drinker!

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: mattkeen
Date: 06 Feb 08 - 08:36 AM

The Sun has got his hat on

and

ghost riders in the sky

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Dave Earl
Date: 06 Feb 08 - 08:38 AM

Valencia stick yer 'ead between yer legs and whistle up yer Barcelona.

Sorry, but you did ask and he was more prone to courseness than my mum (see the what mum sang thread)

Dave

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: GUEST,Boab
Date: 06 Feb 08 - 02:34 PM

A dour auld Scot, Faither's favourite---"Home in Pasadena"!!

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: GUEST,Bert
Date: 07 Feb 08 - 03:44 AM

LOL! Tattie Bogle, I was thinking the same thing.

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: GUEST,Granny In Wales
Date: 07 Feb 08 - 06:49 AM

note for Sandynewlap. "The Long, Long Trail" is a very well-known First World War song, sung by British Soldiers.

I'm sure that you will find it in the ether somewhere.

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Jeri
Date: 07 Feb 08 - 06:55 AM

Long, Long Trail (Stoddard King) is in the DT. My dad sang the same thing, and also only the chorus.

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Schantieman
Date: 07 Feb 08 - 02:37 PM

Tattie Bogle:

My dad did both the 'I've got Sixpence' and 'Here's to Good Old Whisky' versions and i'm in the process of passing both (and others) on to my daughter.

We used to sing mostly in the car to pass the time and to relieve the intellectual exercise of 20 Questions!

Steve

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 07 Feb 08 - 08:54 PM

Oh and "I spy with my little eye".
I remember when my dad got his first car radio, but wouldn't use it while driving in case it distracted him: smokers and moby users, take note!

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 08 Feb 08 - 09:42 AM

Thanks to all for your contributions. I have added four new songs to my dulcimer repertoire because I saw them here:

Que Sera, Sera
I've Got Sixpence
Kerry Dancing
Sidewalks of New York.

My father used to sing one line of a song as he worked about the house, then suddenly stop singing. I wonder if someone once told him he had an ugly voice. I remember

I'm Sending You a Big Bouquet of Roses
Sweet Little Alice Blue Gown
Oh, the Moonlight's Fair (Bright?) Tonight Along the Wabash.

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Bert
Date: 14 Mar 08 - 01:01 AM

Oh, the Moonlight's Fair Tonight Along the Wabash.
Though the fields there comes the breath of new mown hay
Though the sycamores the candelights are gleaming
on the banks of the Wabash far away.

and

Oh I works just like a N**** (Navvy) though I isn't over strong
I'm mostly on me trotters all the time
soze I'm glad when Easter Sunday or a Whitsun comes along
for a day of perfect rest I'm really prime

Nah I lately took it in me 'ead I 'ad a day to spare
Wiv the wife and kiddies in their Sunday Clo'es
'Twarz a treat to make me mind up for a little country air
the pleasures of a quiet day's repose

There was me and the missus and the 'arf a dozen kids
a starting in the mornin' for the zoo
We played at Jack and Jill as we sampled Greenwich Hill
and then we went to Eppin' Forest too,

'ampstead, 'igate, Kilburn, Kensal Green
A loaded wiv the lilacs and the may
we got weary on our pins and we lorst the bloomin' twins
but I'm glad we 'ad a nice quiet day.

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Bert
Date: 14 Mar 08 - 10:48 PM

Call 'round any old time
make yourself at home
put your feet on the mantleshelf
go to the cupboard and help yourself
I don't care if your friends
have left you all alone
Rich or poor, knock at the door
and make yourself at home.

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 15 Mar 08 - 04:33 AM

My dad was a semi-professional singer ( the Liverpool UK area) in his younger days. His three big music heroes were Al Jolson, Bing Crosby and Jimmie Rodgers; indeed, his rendition of those performers classic songs amounted to impersonations. I loved him singing the Jimmie Rodgers stuff, complete with great yodelling. My favourites were "Hobo Bill's last Ride" and "Me and My old guitar".

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: GUEST,Chicken Charlie
Date: 15 Mar 08 - 11:52 PM

My father was not musical. He used to sing about half a verse of "The Crash on the Highway," just because he particularly hated it. Talk about reverse psychology.

I had to skip a generation. I had a great-uncle who played banjo and harmonica. He was renowned for "Turkey in the Straw." Maternal grandfather liked "The Wedding of Lili Marlene." And how 'bout Mom, you chauvinist? "Be Still, My Soul (Finlandia)." She needed it, I guess, with all those other characters around.

CC

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: GUEST
Date: 26 Mar 09 - 12:38 PM

My Dad since Deceased, taught me so little on his guitar. Acoustic. He played at all the weare NH. Dances, back awayw. Age did not deter
his talent, nor did arthritis in his fingers and hands.   ':( You are my Sunshine ) was the first song he taught me, now i take lessons and still can't tune my own giutar Might I say very Frustrating.......... He sang all the old songs taht can be thought up . I never went to the dances I was tooo young Darn it.
"


Alice of Manchester NH.

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: goatfell
Date: 26 Mar 09 - 12:51 PM

my father sang quite a lot of songs some of which I now sing and so did my mother sing songs a well and they are being sung by me as well.

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: babypix
Date: 26 Mar 09 - 12:59 PM

Little Tom Tinker
The Leatherwing Bat
Oh What a Beautiful Mornin'
The Whiffenpoof Song
It's a Sin to Tell a Lie

Still sings 'em, too...beautifully. I had a wonderful time at a recent family reunion, singing songs together with my father. Probably the best bonding experience we ever had. Only took 40-some years. It's never too late to have a happy childhood! ; )

Deborah Robins
www.themusicofamerica.org

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Will Fly
Date: 26 Mar 09 - 01:29 PM

My dad used to sing, while shaving:

"Go back to your mother you bald-headed bugger,
You don't belong to me.
He couldn't play rugger, the poor little bugger,
He hadn't the strength, you see."

to the tune of a Sousa march - and I must find the correct title...

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Bert
Date: 26 Mar 09 - 01:42 PM

Hey Will, that must be related to another one my Dad used to sing to the tune of Blaze Away.

Ain't it a pity she's only one titty
to feed the baby on
The poor little bugger will never play rugger
he won't be big and strong.

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Noreen
Date: 26 Mar 09 - 02:37 PM

The Old Bog Road
Kevin Barry
The Rose of Tralee...

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: GUEST,CupOfTea, no cookies
Date: 26 Mar 09 - 06:20 PM

My father was a perfect reflection of his times singing. He looked like Fred Astaire, and had a perfect crooner's voice. He could also whistle with great volume and intonation anything he'd a mind to. His favorite piece had to be his version of "My Blue Heaven" with my mother's and my names dropped in (just Ferny and me, Joannie makes three) which made me cringe by my high school years.

Very unfortunately, his repertoire was exceedingly small. Like any music, no matter how wonderful, the 2,000th repetition of it that month leaves you running for the other room. He was likley to come out with something from a Bing Crosby or Fred Astaire musical if he'd heard it recently, but it would fade out fast. His top 6 (In heavy rotation) were:

Peanut sat on a railroad track/Ain't gonna rain no more
The Sunday School song (AKA the "Darkie's Sunday school, but without the minstrel show dialect "Adam was the first man ever invented..")
Down by the Old Mill Stream (I thought all drunks knew this song when I was a kid)
Toura loura loura
My Blue Heaven
When Irish Eyes are Smiling

I so regret that I didn't have the smarts to try singing with him, and learning songs with him or teaching him the ones I came to love at camp.

Joanne in Cleveland

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Rasener
Date: 26 Mar 09 - 06:25 PM

The only song I remember my dad singing was down at the Aston Villa matches. The song that they sung in those days was "Its a long way to tipparary" adapted to "Its a long way to go to Wembley", the year they beat Manchester United at Wembley in the FA Cup (When it meant something) in 1957.

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 26 Mar 09 - 06:34 PM

He didn't.

Jerry

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Rasener
Date: 26 Mar 09 - 06:37 PM

He did

Les

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Rasener
Date: 26 Mar 09 - 06:46 PM

I even remeber the words to thisday. Not sung anymore

Its a long way to go to Wembley
Its a long way to go
Its a long long way to go to Wembley
But we'll get there yes we know

Goodbye Bristol City
Goodbye Burnley too

Its a long long way to go to Wembley
But we'll get there yes we know


No swearing then or fighting etc. :-)

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Will Fly
Date: 26 Mar 09 - 07:07 PM

Bert:
Hey Will, that must be related to another one my Dad used to sing to the tune of Blaze Away.

Ain't it a pity she's only one titty
to feed the baby on
The poor little bugger will never play rugger
he won't be big and strong.

Aha - "Blaze Away" is indeed the tune! Ta, Bert. My dad got a lot of his odd ways, including silly songs and phrases from his war years as a navigator in the RAF - trained in Canada and served in Egypt and other areas such as India, Pakistan, etc.

A lot of postwar slang was actually services slang. I can remember dad saying "Let's have a shufti" when he meant "Let's have a look". and "Time for a charp" when he meant time for a nap. ("Charp" from "charpoy" - Indian word for a day bed). Did your dad have wartime or national service?

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 26 Mar 09 - 08:01 PM

Hm..can't see that I answered before but maybe I missed it. Anyway, I only remember him singing Jim O'Shea was cast away, McNamara's Band and Kkkkkkaty. But my sister insists he sang Paddy from Cork Paddy from Cork holes in his britches as big as New York...his father died when he was very young but was supposedly a great singer and friend of Bing Crosby's father so I always wonder if Bing Crosby was at all influenced ever by my grandfather. Oh I think he also sang wait till the cows come home. mg

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Betsy
Date: 26 Mar 09 - 08:34 PM

Nice to see this thread revived - maybe the thread should have read "What did your Dad (or Mam)used to sing"
My Mum on washing days 1950's when boiling the whites used to sing " Has any body here seen Kelly - Kelly from the Isle of White?"
That was IT, - nothing else - did I miss-out on some subtledy / an in-joke about boiling, and Isle of White, or, was there ever an actual song about "Kelly from the Isle of White

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Noreen
Date: 26 Mar 09 - 09:54 PM

'Kelly from the Isle of Man' was the song, Betsy.

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Noreen
Date: 26 Mar 09 - 09:58 PM

Has Anybody Here Seen Kelly? (Wikipedia)

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Bert
Date: 27 Mar 09 - 12:07 AM

Will,

Dad was unfit for miltary service so they made him an Air Raid Warden and he worked on ship repair in The London Docks.

If we got cold during the night he would cover us with his great coat. I still have to laugh when I hear that line from 'In Me Liverpool Home' which goes 'Under old overcoats each night we slept'.

Betsy, the thread you are looking for is here

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: quokka
Date: 27 Mar 09 - 01:00 AM

My Dad's still singing away at 77 - and making CDs if you don't mind!
His favourite when we were little was
'Far Away in Australia'.
Some of his favourites are:

Down By Lough Arrow's Side
Glorious Old Round Towers of Ireland
Lakes of Sligo
Three Leaf Shamrock.

He has a lot of songs - far more now than I remember from my childhood.

Cheers,

Quokka

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Will Fly
Date: 27 Mar 09 - 04:34 AM

Bert - the London Docks was a rare old place to be at that time! Glad he survived. He must have had some tales to tell of when the dock are and the East End went up in flames.

My dad was in the Home Guard at the age of 19, just before joining up in 1941, and he remembers standing on the tower of Blackrod Church (St. Katharine's) with the unit, watching Liverpool burn from the bombing. And Liverpool's a fair few miles from Blackrod...

It was my grandfather (dad's father) who did most of the singing when I was a child, and I remember sitting on his knee while he sang a song with the words "Mary Ellen at the church turned up" - to which I'll find the tune and words one day, in my copious free time!

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 27 Mar 09 - 05:11 AM

My dad used to sing lots of 'part songs'

By that I don't mean he sang harmonies,
He could never remember all words!

R.I.P. Dad!

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Betsy
Date: 27 Mar 09 - 06:18 AM

Thanks for that Noreen

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Bert
Date: 27 Mar 09 - 02:11 PM

Will,

Dad said that the dock workers used to curse the mammoth crane that was out there floating in the river 'cos it was a prime target for the Luftwaffe.

He never said much about his duties as an Air Raid Warden, I guess he was sparing us kids or just didn't want to talk about it.

Most of the time he was on duty they spent their time in the Wardens' hut playing darts or cribbage.

Here's a thread about Mary Ellen

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Will Fly
Date: 27 Mar 09 - 02:51 PM

Ah Bert! Many thanks for the "Turned Up" thread. Excellent.

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Singing Referee
Date: 27 Mar 09 - 05:39 PM

A muvva was baffin' her baby one night
The poor little fing was an 'orrible sight
The muvva was poor and the baby was fin
Was just a wee skelinton covered wiv skin
The muvva turned round for the soap on the rack
T'was only a moment but when she turned back
'er baby was gorn and wiv anguish she cried
Oh where is my babe, and the angels replied

Your baby 'as gorn dahn the plug 'ole
Your baby as gorn dahn the plug
The poor little fing was so fin and so small
'e should 'ave been washed in a jug
Your baby is perfectly 'appy
'e won't want a baff any more
'e's floated away dahn the drain pipe
Not lorst but gorn before!

Best I can do with the North London accent. That wasn't his normal speach, but it was perfect for the song!

Still going strong at 91!

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: lompocan
Date: 27 Mar 09 - 05:55 PM

The two songs mt dad sang that stand out most in my memory were:
Bill Grogan's Goat, with a refrain of "bud-a-bee-bum-bum". I can remember him explaining that three red shirts could stop a train.

The other was John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt, with the "J"s pronounced as "Y".

Mostly I remember these from long car rides.

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Joe_F
Date: 27 Mar 09 - 08:29 PM

I've got rings on my fingers,
And bells on my toes,
Elephants to ride upon,
My little Irish rose,
So come to my [?]
Upon St Patrick's Day:
Be Miss Chief Mumbo Jumbo Jijiboo Jay
O'Shea.

-- probably wrong, and I always hear "Miss Chief" as "mischief".

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Beer
Date: 27 Mar 09 - 10:05 PM

White Silver Sands. His all time favorite.
Beer (adrien)

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: GUEST,Bryan
Date: 15 May 09 - 08:12 PM

DAD
Paddy your an Irishman
Paddy your a rouge
The only thing that's Irish
is your cloths and brogue
MUM
If i had a silver dollar and i put it on the
ground it would ro o o ll because its ro o ound
ME
"The pianist what played em was an undred and free
grabbed a andful of notes in no particaler key"

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 15 May 09 - 08:53 PM

The Tenderfoot
The Jam on Jerry's Rocks
John Nankivell, b. 1921:

Danville Girl
The Tennessee Waltz
The Red River Valley
Green Grow the Lilacs
Careless Love
Shenandoah

Chattenooga Choo Choo and other "pop" of the day

The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze, and other selections from the IOCA Songfest


Dad's hearing has gotten so bad that he hasn't sung for quite a while, and now Parkinson's is making speech difficult.

I treasure the memories, but mourn the loss. Never got him recorded.

~ Becky in Tucson

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Nick E
Date: 15 May 09 - 09:04 PM

I don't know if you could call it singing but I hear "Go To Your Room" more than a few times

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Janie
Date: 15 May 09 - 09:16 PM

I have always followed this thread, and always found that it makes me sad.

My Dad was always afraid to really sing, though he loves music, especially old-time country, old-time blue grass (Ralph Stanley, but not New Grass) and folk music. All I have ever heard him sing are little snippets, usually along with a song on the radio or the record/cd player.   It was apparent from that little bit that he had within him a fine voice.    He is a grand whistler, but has always been afraid to cut loose with that also. Instead, he always encouraged us to sing, and to this day nothing gives him greater pleasure than when my remaining sister and I are home, Annie breaks out the guitar or the fiddle, and we sit down and sing some duets for him.

HIs own father was fine singer and whistler, ( apparently was also a fine banjo and fiddle player until he got saved in a church that only found a capella music acceptable) but only contenanced singing to the glory of his United Baptist concept of God. My earliest memories of live music are of my grandfather singing and whistling hymns as he went about the house, his orchard and his garden. he was a wonderful grandfather. But in his own kids, he managed to squelch any impetus to find their own voice.

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 15 May 09 - 10:37 PM

I can't think of anything in particular my father sang all the way through except for the one about the goat who coughed up the red shirts and flagged the train. I remember he sang in the church choir and they did the whole oratorio "Elijah".   I thought it was so long.   But now I love it.


Anyway, this is just a fantastic thread.

Hey, Bill D--

If you read this--any chance we can get you to recite "An Overworked Elocutionist", from early in this thread, at the Getaway?   That is just such a perfect party piece. And we can try to figure out where all those quotes come from. I can get a fair number--but there are some I've never heard before.

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 15 May 09 - 10:42 PM

I particularly love:

"When Britain first at Heaven's command said: "Boatswain, do not tarry;
The despot's heel is on thy shore, and while ye may, go marry"

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 16 May 09 - 01:08 AM

oops, somehow got Dad inserted in the middle of his songs, above...

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Dave Illingworth
Date: 16 May 09 - 04:16 AM

My Dad used to sing BROTHER CAN'T YOU SPARE A DIME, which I still sing. Apparently he used to serenade my Mum with STARDUST, which I also still sing. Sadly I only heard about him singing that song until after his death.   He was a scoutmaster, so also knew all the usual campfire songs, too many to mention.
My mother knew all the popular songs from the radio and sang them round the house, in a very musical voice.
Neither were "folk-singers" or sang in public (apart from scout camp fires) but, more and more, I realise that their humble (and tuneful)
singing was a great influence on me - probably as much as the radio
and all the great records I started listening to.

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Bernard
Date: 16 May 09 - 12:31 PM

Oddly enough, my father doesn't sing... he didn't when I was a child, or whilst I was growing up, and at 85 he still doesn't.

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 16 May 09 - 01:21 PM

A few thoughts...

In the house as a young kid, some Opera thing that always sounded to me like "Harley Double Vic and Vee an Treenia"

In the car on a journey, it might be.
When father painted the parlour
Mick McGilligan's Ball
Sweet Violets
I've Got Sixpence.

Also, at home, around the house.
A few from a John McCormack record, Oh The Days Of the Kerry Dancing, etc.

Annie Laurie
Flow Gently Sweet Afton
Vicar Of Bray

Tom Bowling
Drake's Drum
Old Bold Mate of Henry Morgan

At the moment, Jerusalem (Lift Up Your Gates and Sing) is popular.

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 16 May 09 - 02:25 PM

I could mention with that he has been enjoying "A Victorian Gentleman's Song Book" with James Griffett, RRC 1023 lately. It seems to match where some of his tastes lie very very well.

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Musket
Date: 16 May 09 - 03:56 PM

Dad wasn't much of a singer, (Although he told a few ribald jokes in his time..)

Mum however, sang in a concert troop in the '40s and '50s and had a good voice.

As a child, (and my eldest had this before she died when he was 2,) I recall my Mum singing;

Christopher Robin

Sadly, my two had to put up with me singing a parody;

Little boy kneels at the foot of the stairs
Clutched in his hand are a bunch of white hairs
Oh my! Just fancy that
Christopher Robin castrated the cat

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Crowhugger
Date: 16 May 09 - 04:31 PM

Swanee River and The Eddystone Light. And with mom, The Keeper Did A-Hunting Go. Only when I was quite small. I don't recall hearing him sing at all after he taught me Swanee River on ukelele, which was when I was maybe 8 years old. I might conclude he was too miserable to sing, since they split up a coupla years later.

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: ClaireBear
Date: 16 May 09 - 08:28 PM

Joe F, in case you ever revisit this thread, it's "come to your Nabob"

Cheers,
Claire

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Dorothy Parshall
Date: 16 May 09 - 10:20 PM

My Dad sang my brother and I to sleep most nights with songs of the 30s, some of the same ones his grandson (49) now plays as djangojazz. Dad would have loved that. I wonder if my son's love of that music came through the genes!?

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: GUEST,Janice now in Western NY State
Date: 17 May 09 - 09:00 AM

My Dad liked Paul Robeson, so he would sing songs from Robeson's repertoire, especially "Old Man River" and "Go Down Moses." Otherwise he would sing mostly pop songs, show tunes, and novelty songs like the one that goes "If you be M-I-N-E mine, I'll be T-H-I-N-E thine, and I'll L-O-V-E love you all the T-I-M-E time." I also remember him singing "Toot, Toot, Tootsie, Goodbye," "Bicycle Built for Two," "In the Good Old Summertime," and "Man on the Flying Trapeze."

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 17 May 09 - 08:58 PM

The Cossack lullaby

It was lovely to hear him sing it to my new grandson the other day as well:-)

I also remember a rendition of the Beer Barrel Polka done only as a Pole can do Polka's!

DeG

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 17 May 09 - 09:15 PM

Whoops - abhorant apostrophe. Please feel free to pour scorn upon my grandma...

:D

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: olddude
Date: 17 May 09 - 10:41 PM

both types of music
country and western

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: fumblefingers
Date: 18 May 09 - 12:47 AM

Casey Jones-- circa 1910

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: GUEST,Valerie
Date: 24 May 09 - 06:07 PM

My father's party piece was the Hippopotamus Song. Dad had a deep voice after a couple of beers, and we would hold our breath on the last line, and there let us wallow in glorious mud.
He also liked singing Christmas carols at the late service on Christmas Eve.

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: GUEST,Shirley
Date: 16 Jun 14 - 02:08 AM

My Dad also sang the Bombin raid every new year. He had been in the Royal Engineers during the war. He was a Dundonian through and through.
He also sang a song about a soldier being fleeced of his money by two "flash girls" then committing suicide in his barracks. On this soldier's tombstone was written.    Don't go a courtin' flash girls of the city. flash girls of the city were the ruin of me.

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: PHJim
Date: 17 Jun 14 - 12:20 AM

Some of the songs I recall my dad singing are The Whiffenpoof Song, Saint James Infirmary, Nobody Knows You When You're Down And Out.
Some of the tunes that he'd sing to us when we were kids were Christopher Robin, Frog He Would A Wooing Go. He'd always finish with:
They paddled of across the lake, Hi Ho said Raleigh,
They paddled off across the lake
And got swallered up by a big black snake
With a ...

That was the end of him and her, Hi Ho said Raleigh,
That was the end of him and her
Now we won't have tadpoles covered in fur
With a...

There's bread and cheese up on the shelf, Hi Ho said Raleigh,
There's bread and cheese up on the shelf
If youwant more sing it for yourself
With a...

There were nonsense syllables in the last line that I can't recall, but I thin each verse ended with, "Hi Ho said Anthony Raleigh."

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: LadyJean
Date: 17 Jun 14 - 12:27 AM

Dad was a Princeton man, so I have no idea why he sang "lord Jeffrey Amherst" But it does explain "Pekinese pekinese woof woof woof! Eli Yale." The Yale mascot is a bulldog, and Yalies sing bulldog bulldog bow wow wow.
He loved jazz. He sang, "Your Feet's Too Big", When we misbehaved we were told to straighten up and fly right.

My mother, a very proper lady. (My friends called her The Duchess.) Had a large repetoire of naughty songs. I sang some for a catter a few years ago. When I came to the one about that trio of old ladies who got locked in the lavatory, he gasped a little and said, "She taught you THAT!"

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: PHJim
Date: 17 Jun 14 - 12:30 AM

I became a single father of 3 year old twins and if they (now 38) were to answer this question I'm pretty sure what some of the songs would be. While driving in our old Dodge truck, they would say, "Sing that Blow Up Your TV song, Papa." They also seemed to like Mama, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Cowboys.
Once at a festival, I sang an old Gene Autry song that I learned as a kid called I'm A Cowpoke Pokin' Along. One of my kids was in the audience and he poked his wife and said, "Papa used to sing that while he bounced us on his knees."

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: meself
Date: 17 Jun 14 - 12:58 AM

My father did a lot of singing of various types of songs. When he was puttering around the house, he would often be singing a couple of lines from one of these:

1) Our Sergeant-Major (His medals broke our hearts/He won them playing darts - in fake George Formby accent);
2) Passengers will Please Refrain;
3) Dirty Yankee Miners (a Cape Breton labour/protest song);
4) Madamoiselle From Armetieres.

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: GUEST,Desi C
Date: 17 Jun 14 - 03:42 AM

Mine, bless his soul, wasn't much of a singer. but he TRIED to sing, I'll take you ome again Kathleen, How Much Is That Doggie (to me) and On The Sunny Side Of The Street, oh and The Pub With No Beer

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: JHW
Date: 17 Jun 14 - 11:13 AM

Hiawatha, Messiah and many another of choral society repertoire. Bass. Soloist occasionally in low budget shows. I've tried choirs but only sing from music enough to know the man next to me is wrong. Dad could do it and in church tried to show me how to pick the bass line out of the organ accompaniment. At home vespers. "The day though gavest Lord is ended or Now the day is over" - tucking us in at bedtime.

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: GUEST,DTM
Date: 17 Jun 14 - 12:39 PM

My auld man's party pieces were "My Grannies Heiland Hame" and "Ragtime Cowboy Joe".
The song my mother would sing was "Maresy Doats...etc"
Both of them loved Strauss's Waltzes, as I do to this day.

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Airymouse
Date: 17 Jun 14 - 02:24 PM

Spanish Cavalier, Pope he leads a jolly life,Percy French's "Ye Ballade of Ivan P. S.,Some day I'm going to murder the bugler.
His old-time songs: Frog went courtin, Who did swallow Joanna down?, In a peapod once lived 5 little peas, Little brown jug,paper of pins,Can she bake a cherry pie?
What I was fondest of was his stories from Greenville Mississippi. Here's one and I'll try to indicate the accent, but I was born in NY, so just pretend Shelby Foote is telling the story. Warning. It's a bit sacrilegious, a word that he pronounced so that it almost rhymed with "egregious."
One day Jesus say da his 'ciples,'ciples, gather yo sel up a rock, cuz wez gon take a walk, in de will de ness. All dem 'ciples gather em sels up a medium size rock, 'cepin' Peter, cuz Peter he's a smart man, pow a ful smart. He gather em self up a great big rock. An dey walk an dey walk an dey walk in de will de ness. All dem 'ciples is pow a ful tired an pow a ful hon gry, specially Peter cuz hez ben totin des great big rock. An Jesus say to his 'ciples, "'ciples, wear es yo rock?" An all dem 'ciples bring fo'th dey rock, 'ceptin' Peter. He kina hang back. An Jesus say, "rock yo es bread,' an lo the rock ES bread.Then Jesus see Peter, and de light shone en his eyes and he say unto Peter, "Peter, yo is my rock. An up on des rock I gon buil' my church. An des rock gon be de foun DATION of my church. Des rock gon..." Peter say, "Lo' des rock gon be bread o nutin'"

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 18 Jun 14 - 01:16 PM

Well, sad to say that since my last post on this thread in 2008, my Dad is no longer with us: died on Christmas Day 2010 at the age of 93.
He retained his love of music to the end: never a great TV watcher, he loved Classic FM (apart from the ads!)
Anther abiding memory is of his style of singing: I used to hear him in church: if it got too high, he'd just drop an octave mid-hymn. Then if it went too low, up the octave again. It's a technique I've taken on myself if a song is not in my own chosen key!
He and my Mum (died 2002)loved choral singing, and Gilbert and Sullivan: the latter also passed on to me as I joined our local G & S Society for quite a few productions. Great photo of them in full regalia for a production of "The Mikado"!

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: GUEST,Guest
Date: 18 Jun 14 - 08:11 PM

In latter years Jim Reeves - and very well too!

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: GUEST,Sean Mac an Ultaigh
Date: 18 Jun 14 - 08:50 PM

"The Bard of Armagh"

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: GUEST,Charmion
Date: 19 Jun 14 - 09:01 AM

"God Save The Queen" and "O Canada". Only way to tell the difference was by the words: "O Canada" was always in French.

Also "Maggie May" and "They're Moving Father's Bones to Build a Sewer", more as recitations than anything resembling actual, ya know, song.

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Black belt caterpillar wrestler
Date: 19 Jun 14 - 06:17 PM

My father was always a classical music man, going back to his childhood in Bebbington when he was accepted for Liverpool Cathedral Choir, but was not allowed to follow through this path as his parents were afraid of him having to cross on the Mersey ferry each day.

Some of my earliest memories of him singing was when he had parts in "The Pirates of Penzance" and "Iolanthe". I remember him singing the judge's song, even though that was not his part, I think that he understudied it as nobody apart from him and the person playing that part could manage it!

I think that he was really pleased the first time that he and I sang together in the bass section for "The Messiah".


One little thing that he said he learned as a boy chorister was sung to the tune of a Bach fugue and concerned Prout's publications of choral music.
Oh Ebeneezer Prout's, you are a funny man,
You have made Bach's fugues as simple as you can,
You have made Bach's fugues as simple as you can.

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: JHW
Date: 20 Jun 14 - 05:29 PM

Crossthreaded here but I had the constant problem of changeing up and down in church keys. (though I've got it beat now)
So ref the thread 'what song at your funeral' make sure to specify the key in your will.

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: GUEST,lanny seaton
Date: 30 Sep 14 - 05:53 PM

My father use to sing the same song but a little different
one there was a happy land
far far away
were the little pigs ran three times a day O you ought to see them run when the see the buther come to cut tree side of there bum

I was told there is more verse to the song

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: GUEST,Andiliqueur
Date: 01 Oct 14 - 07:03 AM

My dad was called "Corporal Greengrass" in the RAF because he sang Inkspot Songs. My love of Folk Music came from all the Scottish Folk Songs his Scottish teacher sang to him in the 1920's eg Lizzie Lindsay and so he sang them to me in the 1950's and I still sing them now.
Another song from WW11 that he sang.

Won't you come to Abyssinia won't you come
Bring your own ammunition and a gun
Mussolini will be there throwing stink bombs in the air
Won't you come to Abyssinia won't you come.

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 01 Oct 14 - 10:34 AM

I used to watch my father shaving sometimes as a special treat. I would sit on the closed lav seat, and he would sing an eclectic lot of songs like The Wheel of the Wagon is Broken, Roll Along Covered Wagon, the beginning of Non Piu Andrai from Marriage Of Figaro, O What A Tight Little Island, On The Isle Of Capri... And after a bit I would join in, natch. This would have been mid 1930s -- I was born 1932 -- when songs like the Gracie Fields one and the Big Bill Campbell one and the Jimmy Kennedy one I mention were around. Tho of course Mozart and Dibdin were a little bit dead by then!...

≈M≈

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: The Sandman
Date: 01 Oct 14 - 01:05 PM

The Bold Fenian Men.

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: GUEST,Desi C
Date: 01 Oct 14 - 01:28 PM

He wasn't much of a singer but I can recall these few as a tot in theearly 50's

Pub With No Beer
Tom Dooley
Gypsy Rover
How much is that doggy
I'll take you home again Kathleen
Sunny side of the street

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Oct 14 - 07:26 AM

Oh what a super thread !!!   yes, its great when people stand up at a club and say "My dad/mum/brother etc used to sing this" It keeps the Tradition Alive !!!

My DAD (Doodah) used to sing

Just an old fashioned lady with those old fashioned clothes,
and the smile that said "welcome" to you
though she wears no fine clothes,
nor no rich silken robes, still there's something that makes
her divine,
for the angels above, taught the way how to love
to that Old Fashioned Mother of Mine.

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: bubblyrat
Date: 02 Oct 14 - 07:33 AM

"Green Grow The Rushes Oh " ( the "Two Two The Lily-white Boys" version ) and "There Once Was A Monk Of Great Renownm Who Shagged All The Women In London Town " . -- He was ex-RAF Bomber Command , so I forgive him.

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: CET
Date: 03 Oct 14 - 06:06 PM

I don't recall my father singing many songs, but he enjoyed music and had a pretty good voice. I do, however, have a distinct memory of him singing two songs to me, All Things Bright and Beautiful, and The Bonnie Earl of Moray. I can remember being really impressed by the line "He might have been the King."

Subject: RE: What did your Dad used to sing?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 04 Oct 14 - 01:27 AM

Oh won't you TRY wheaties, TRY wheaties...

Bedtime was Hush Little Baby