Lyr Req: Father's Got the Sack from the Water Work

Subject: Lyr Req: Father got the sack from the Waterworks
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 31 Mar 08 - 04:33 PM

Busily thinking about "folksinger" reminded me of one of the songs my late father used to sing. Obviously a music-hall song, but hey, it (or at least the bit I remember) was indeed handed down to me by the folk process. No hits on "Waterworks" in DT.

"Father got the sack from the waterworks
For smoking his little cherry briar
The foreman, Joe
Told him he must go
'Cos he might set the waterworks on fire".

Anyone got the rest?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Father got the sack from the Waterworks
From: Waddon Pete
Date: 01 Apr 08 - 10:20 AM

This is a new one on me, Richard!

I'll ask a couple of likely people tonight and let you know if it rings any bells!

Best wishes,

Peter

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Father got the sack from the Waterwor
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 01 Apr 08 - 10:35 AM

Pete, Did The Waterworks have a Bell Ringer, then?


My Waterworks has more of a tinkling sound....

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Father got the sack from the Waterwor
From: Waddon Pete
Date: 01 Apr 08 - 12:13 PM

Ahh, Foolestroupe...LOL...depends on the construction of the required facility!

Best wishes,

Peter

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Father got the sack from the Waterwor
From: NormanD
Date: 01 Apr 08 - 12:17 PM

I remember this one, too, from my old man. Only difference is:
"....Foreman Joe
Said he had to go...."

There was only one verse as I recall.

There's a cd available of music hall songs, recorded between 1912 and 1936, and there's a version available by Maidie Scott
info here

norman

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Father got the sack from the Waterwor
From: Waddon Pete
Date: 01 Apr 08 - 12:23 PM

Thanks Norman.....another one chalked up to Mudcat!

Best wishes,

Peter

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Father got the sack from the Waterworks
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 01 Apr 08 - 05:53 PM

Thank you.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Father got the sack from the Waterwor
From: Charley Noble
Date: 02 Apr 08 - 03:10 PM

I note that the recording date is October, 1915, for this song.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Father got the sack from the Waterworks
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 02 Apr 08 - 03:37 PM

My father probably got it from his mother and her sisters. Maud played the piano (and could vamp and transpose to very great effect). Grace was the beauty but also had brains (actually, family name was Brain back then) and could memorise whole poems at a single hearing. My grandmother Alice was the only one who married. She was also the one with the common sense.

Their parents used to send the three sisters to the music hall, and then when the sisters had returned they would re-play the evening's entertainment in its entirety for the rest of the family assembled.

Subject: Lyr Add: FATHER'S GOT THE SACK FROM THE WATER WORK
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 03 Apr 08 - 10:43 PM

G. K. Chesterton quoted the song in his book "Eugenics and Other Evils: An Argument against the Scientifically Organized State":

Father's got the sack from the water works
For smoking of his old cherry briar.
Father's got the sack from the water works
'Cos he might set the water works on fire.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Father's Got the Sack from the Water Work
From: GUEST,robin j
Date: 13 Sep 11 - 07:50 AM

my grandfather sang this coninualy when i was small and i still find it ammusing, sad.
   
    father got the sack from the waterworks
    for smoking his little cherry briar
    foreman joe he said he'd have to go
    cos he might set the waterworks afire.

can anyone recal

    i remember as a tiny cid
    i had a fearful fright
    our house caught fire one night
    my face went chalky white
    we did stumble down the fire escape
    without the slightest fuss
    then the fireman came and turned
    his happy hose on us... etc.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Father's Got the Sack from the Water Work
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 14 Sep 11 - 11:56 AM

Described thus at WorldCat.org:

FATHER'S GOT THE SACK FROM THE WATER WORKS
Words and music by Charles Collins and Terry Sullivan; sung by Miss Maidie Scott.
London: Francis, Day & Hunter, ©1915.

First line: Our house is like a vessel in distress upon the sea.
First line of chorus: Father's got the sack from the water works.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Father's Got the Sack from the Water Work
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 14 Sep 11 - 12:06 PM

Well done that man. Why couldn't I find that?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Father's Got the Sack from the Water Work
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 14 Sep 11 - 09:51 PM

Maybe you searched for "Father got" but not "father's got" and maybe "waterworks" but not "water works" (2 words).

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Father's Got the Sack from the Water Work
From: GUEST,999
Date: 10 Sep 12 - 05:41 AM

The site below gives a few details of a movie showing "Dramatisation of the song synchronizing with a singer on the cinema stage."

I don't know if that means the song words are shown on the screen as they are sung or whether it has sound.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2351219/combined

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Father's Got the Sack from the Water Work
From: GUEST,Kev S
Date: 21 Apr 17 - 01:18 AM

This is how it was taught to me by my dad in the 1950s. He grew up in Newcastle NSW Australia in the 30s

When I was a nipper and a tiny lad
I had an awful fright
Our house caught fire one night
my face went chalky white
I was bundled down the fire escape
without the slightest fuss
The fireman came and turned the hose
right on top of us
Right in the middle of the road
Right in the middle of the road
There was Pa ,half undressed
lying in the gutter with a mangle on his chest
and oh those flames ,what a wonderful picture show
Mother had a bath in the washing basin
Right in the middle of the road......

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Father's Got the Sack from the Water Work
From: Long Firm Freddie
Date: 21 Apr 17 - 11:03 AM

In a 1926 issue of The Gramophone Compton McKenzie asked various luminaries about their favourite songs:

The Gramophone

GK Chesterton (Essayist, novelist, critic)

My taste in songs wavers among somewhat different examples; but I think it would probably be between the noble Scottish song, 'Caller Herrin'', which seems to me full of the Scottish sense of human dignity for the poor, and some specimen of the broader and more genial English spirit, such as the beautiful lyric that goes:

'Father's got the sack from the waterworks / For smoking of his old cherry briar / He, said Foreman Joe, would bloody well have to go / As he'd probably set the waterworks on fire.'

GK went on to dissect the chorus at length in his book Eugenics and Other Evils:

Eugenics

"But that noble stanza about the water-works has other elements of nobility besides nationality. It provides a compact and almost perfect summary of the whole social problem in industrial countries like England and America. If I wished to set forth systematically the elements of the ethical and economic problem in Pittsburg or Sheffield, I could not do better than take these few words as a text, and divide them up like the heads of a sermon. Let me note the points in some rough fashion here."

LFF