Subject: RE: 'Naughty' Songs by Famous Folk From: Charley Noble Date: 11 Mar 11 - 08:09 PM Richard Dyer-Bennet sort of cleared the air with his "Mark Twain's 1601" recording, available again from Smithsonian Folkways. In addition to the bawdy recitation of "1601" there are these bawdy songs: Old Joe Clark The Old She-Crab The Tailor's Boy The Eer-i-e Canal There was a Friar in Our Town The Gathering of the Clan Now not all the bawdy verses of "The Gathering of the Clan" were recorded. That would have filled up several CD's. However, at least one reviewer was quite flabbergasted that Dyer-Bennet would recite and sing such vile stuff! Cheerily, Charley Noble |
Subject: RE: 'Naughty' Songs by Famous Folk From: JohnH Date: 11 Mar 11 - 06:06 PM Just find "Pills to Purge Melancholy" (D'Urfey, 1721) |
Subject: RE: 'Naughty' Songs by Famous Folk From: GUEST,Ebor_Fiddler Date: 11 Mar 11 - 05:17 PM And there was the version rcorded by Bix Beiderbecke and friends (I can't remember the name they used THIS time!). Qv. |
Subject: RE: 'Naughty' Songs by Famous Folk From: BrooklynJay Date: 11 Mar 11 - 05:02 PM In response to GUEST,DrugCrazed: There have been several discussions of Barnacle Bill the Sailor; click here for one of them. Two versions of the song are in the DT, though only one would qualify as bawdy. Jay |
Subject: RE: 'Naughty' Songs by Famous Folk From: Jack Campin Date: 11 Mar 11 - 04:47 PM I once saw a copy of a biography of Kathleen Ferrier that had a photocopy of one of her letters (typed and signed) inside it. She quoted this limerick: There was a young lady of Nantes Who was tres joli et piquante. But her hole was so small It was no good at all Except for la plume de ma tante. I've heard from other sources that Ferrier was fond of bawdy stuff. I wonder if there are any clandestine recordings of her singing it? |
Subject: RE: 'Naughty' Songs by Famous Folk From: Jim Carroll Date: 11 Mar 11 - 02:56 PM Not a song - a story about the traditional singer Aunt Molly Jackson - wonder if anyone can verify it? Alan Lomax heard that she knew a number of bawdy/bordering on the obscene Jack Tales, which she would never tell in public, and refused to allow to be recorded. When she was visiting his home one summer he set up a recorder under a table with the microphone hidden behind an air-conditioning grille, switched on the recorder and left it running. Worked fine for a few minutes until another guest switched the air-conditioning on. Jim Carroll |
Subject: RE: 'Naughty' Songs by Famous Folk From: Leadfingers Date: 11 Mar 11 - 02:20 PM Oscar Brand's Bawdy Songs Goes to College was actually released in UK - I do a couple of the songs on it myself ! |
Subject: RE: 'Naughty' Songs by Famous Folk From: GUEST,DrugCrazed Date: 11 Mar 11 - 07:39 AM One that I know of (but never heard the tune) was Barnacle Bill the Sailor. I believe there's one verse with the maiden asking "What would you do if I locked the door?" to which Barnacle Bill replies with "I'll smash off the lock with my long hard cock". Ahh, the clean mouths of sailors. Makes you happy doesn't it? |
Subject: RE: 'Naughty' Songs by Famous Folk From: Dave Hanson Date: 11 Mar 11 - 07:21 AM Martin Carthy's version of the traditional ' Bonny Black Hare ' is pretty good, I took out me ramrod and me bullets likwise, I said wrap your legs round me and dig in with your heels, For the closer we get love, the better it feels. Dave H |
Subject: RE: 'Naughty' Songs by Famous Folk From: BobKnight Date: 11 Mar 11 - 07:12 AM I uses to sing a country song called, "Why Don't We Get Drunk And Screw," which I learned from a guy called J.B Morrison, from Nashville. |
Subject: RE: 'Naughty' Songs by Famous Folk From: Don Firth Date: 25 Sep 09 - 04:48 PM Well, of course there was Richard Dyer-Bennet's "1601" album on his own label. He really let it all hang out on that one! Don Firth |
Subject: RE: 'Naughty' Songs by Famous Folk From: GUEST Date: 25 Sep 09 - 04:24 PM From my dear mother, a child's verse sung to me: Jay-bird, jay-bird, sittin on a rail, Niddle-noddle went his head, flip went his tail. And sometimes, when she was feeling "naughty," Mom would say that last line: Niddle-noddle went his head- POOP! went his tail! |
Subject: RE: 'Naughty' Songs by Famous Folk From: topical tom Date: 25 Sep 09 - 02:22 PM Refresh. |
Subject: RE: 'Naughty' Songs by Famous Folk From: GUEST,Ray Date: 24 Sep 09 - 01:31 PM Ought to mention the two sides of the late Shell Silverstein. On the one hand he wrote many children's stories whilst on the other gems like "Freaker's Ball" and, my personal favourite, "Don't Give a Dose to the One You Love Most" Ray |
Subject: RE: 'Naughty' Songs by Famous Folk From: Don Firth Date: 23 Sep 09 - 04:19 PM Back in the late 1950s, there as a guy who came to the hoots (informal song fests) in Seattle who had a whole head full of raunchy songs, including most of the ones Oscar Brand had recorded. But this guy sang the words that even Oscar Brand backed away from and "prettied up." At one of these song fests, there was a girl there who kept asking for "fast songs." So we did all kinds of up-tempo stuff, but she still kept asking for "fast songs." Then, Bob Brock walked in. His first song that evening, as I recall, was "John, the Bastard King of England," unbowdlerized version. The girl squealed with glee and said, "That's what I mean! Fast songs!!" Don Firth |
Subject: RE: 'Naughty' Songs by Famous Folk From: Stringsinger Date: 23 Sep 09 - 03:44 PM Tom Lehrer's "Be Prepared" about boy scouts would qualify. The best I ever saw at the Eistedfodd at Southern Massachusetts University was the Dirty Songs Workshop with Cliff Haslem, Peter Marston, David Jones and I think Louis Killen was there. They did fifteen minutes on The Ball of Ballymuire, each verse raunchier than the other. When the workshop was done, I gazed out into a sea of red faces and laughter. I'm not comfortable about repeating these verses here. But if they ever do a Dirty Songs Workshop again, don't miss it. Frank |
Subject: RE: 'Naughty' Songs by Famous Folk From: topical tom Date: 23 Sep 09 - 02:58 PM Don Firth: Sorry about the folk-pas in attributing "When Dalliance was in Flower..." to Oscar Brand when it should have been Ed McCurdy, another of my favourite singer-songwriters. Memo to self:Trust not thy memory...do RESEARCH instead! |
Subject: RE: 'Naughty' Songs by Famous Folk From: Michael Date: 23 Sep 09 - 01:35 PM Not forgetting the 'rude' - 'Pee Po Belly Bum Drawers' By Flanders and Swann Ma's out, Pa's out, Let's talk rude! Pee Po Belly Bum Drawers. Dance round the garden in the nude, Pee Po Belly Bum Drawers. Let's write rude words all down our street, Stick out our tongues at the people we meet, Let's have an intellectual treat for Pee Po Belly Bum Drawers. Sunday again on CBC, Pee Po Belly Bum Drawers. And Norman Mailer's coming to tea, Pee Po Belly Bum Pants! Alan Ginsberg reads on and on, But we're having a happening when he's gone, Come to the party in the John, Pee Po Belly Bum Drawers. Disney's planning a double bill, Pee Po Belly Bum Drawers. Christopher Robin meets Fanny Hill, Pooh Bear Belly Bum Drawers. On stage and screen we all work hard, Throwing toilet rolls in our own backyard, Who's afraid of the avent garde? Pee, Pee, Po, Po, Belly, Belly, Bum, Bum, Pee Po Belly Bum Drawers. What gets prizes and wins awards? Pee Po Belly Bum Drawers. What did prince Phillip tell the Lords? Well, never mind that. At Oxford and Cambridge, and Yale and all, At Berkely, they really have a ball, 'cos the higher the brow, the harder they fall, Pee Po Belly Bum Drawers. Mike |
Subject: RE: 'Naughty' Songs by Famous Folk From: Don Firth Date: 23 Sep 09 - 12:42 PM I see others beat me to it, but Oscar Brand wasn't the one who did "When Oscar Brand had several records of "Bawdy Songs and Backroom Ballads," complete with a songbook with the same name (got it on my bookshelf). Don Firth |
Subject: RE: 'Naughty' Songs by Famous Folk From: topical tom Date: 23 Sep 09 - 11:31 AM Thanks a lot for the pm'ed link,ClaireBear. Good info! |
Subject: RE: 'Naughty' Songs by Famous Folk From: VirginiaTam Date: 23 Sep 09 - 08:14 AM Maddy Prior - The Trooper's Nag |
Subject: RE: 'Naughty' Songs by Famous Folk From: Keith A of Hertford Date: 23 Sep 09 - 03:53 AM Perhaps its just my dirty mind. |
Subject: RE: 'Naughty' Songs by Famous Folk From: Keith A of Hertford Date: 23 Sep 09 - 03:34 AM Cyril Tawney wrote an amusing song caled Five Foot Flirt. I think that it might have started out rude, but, gentleman that he was, he toned it down for his wife and civvy folk. The verses all end in "Jim kissing you" My theory. Cow verse. "Jim stuck in you" Chicken verse. "Jim having you" (Assuming original "...fox HAD my chickens..") Church verse. "Jim pumping you" @displaysong.cfm?SongID=2038 |
Subject: RE: 'Naughty' Songs by Famous Folk From: Effsee Date: 22 Sep 09 - 10:31 PM Guest of 10.55AM..."Source someone who was present."... I think you're going to have to justify a little more than that! |
Subject: RE: 'Naughty' Songs by Famous Folk From: ClaireBear Date: 22 Sep 09 - 07:11 PM Topical Tom, I just PM'd you a link to Bob Bossin's web site, where there's a sample of "Show Us the Length" long enough to tach you the tune. Please forgive me for not reading through the thread and finding that Barbara had already posted a link to the lyrics, before doing so myself in my PM. I'm just always so excited when someone likes a Bob Bossin song, I lose my head... C |
Subject: RE: 'Naughty' Songs by Famous Folk From: Herga Kitty Date: 22 Sep 09 - 06:16 PM I have previously posted here about Vic Gammon's version of the Bastard King of England... Kitty |
Subject: RE: 'Naughty' Songs by Famous Folk From: topical tom Date: 22 Sep 09 - 04:59 PM GUEST,TJ in San Diego: As I read the titles of the songs you mentioned they come back to me.I and a group of friends used to gather at a colleague's home for dinner and we would listen to his large collection of Oscar Brand's bawdy songs. We used to sing a number of them at men's get-togethers back in the day. |
Subject: RE: 'Naughty' Songs by Famous Folk From: GUEST,TJ in San Diego Date: 22 Sep 09 - 04:15 PM Ref: Oscar Brand Oscar put out eight albums of "Bawdy Songs and Backroom Ballads" back in the 1950's, I believe. I have heard more than a couple of songs from them in years past. Among the highlights were "The Winnipeg Whore," "The Hermit" and "The Good Ship Venus." "Blinded by the Turds" was another knee-slapper. Some accounts refer to the songs as bowdlerized, many of the originals being too rough even for Oscar. I still have his album of sea shanties, put out during the same era. |
Subject: RE: 'Naughty' Songs by Famous Folk From: Stilly River Sage Date: 22 Sep 09 - 03:59 PM "Eskimo Nell" does have a suggestion only of Robert Service, which seems intnetional, but it doesn't have the more expansive nature of his work and it doesn't scan as well. With the shorter lines it makes sense that it would be a song, and I can imagine Noel Coward coming up with it. I have the Daliance collection, a four record set recorded by Ed McCurdy. He doesn't pull any punches, there are no asterisks or coughs or bells rung to hide the real words. SRS |
Subject: RE: 'Naughty' Songs by Famous Folk From: moongoddess Date: 22 Sep 09 - 11:29 AM "Let's Talk Dirty in Hawaiian" by John Prine. And this is my favorite, "The Husband With No Courage In Him". |
Subject: RE: 'Naughty' Songs by Famous Folk From: GUEST Date: 22 Sep 09 - 10:55 AM "Eskimo Nell" was written by Noel Coward and first performed with him at the piano at a "Sods Opera" onboard HMS Gambia when she was stationed out in the West Indies - the audience reaction considering the mans reputation was described as being "Thunderstruck" - Source someone who was present. |
Subject: RE: 'Naughty' Songs by Famous Folk From: Beer Date: 22 Sep 09 - 10:47 AM Taken from the site I posted above. "This is a folk poem with no known author, but commonly considered to be in the style of Robert Service the writer best known for his writings of the Canadian North, in particular of his poem "The Shooting of Dan McGrew".[2] As with all traditional poems/songs, there is variation to the texts. It appeared in bawdy song books compiled by university students in South Africa in the 1940s, so it is at least sixty years old. Nell has been the subject of serious research and differences of interpretation have been recorded". Adrien |
Subject: RE: 'Naughty' Songs by Famous Folk From: meself Date: 22 Sep 09 - 10:41 AM By the way, have we forgotten that Robert Service was Scottish? Having said that - I would want to see more evidence before I concluded Service wrote Eskimo Nell. |
Subject: RE: 'Naughty' Songs by Famous Folk From: MARINER Date: 22 Sep 09 - 04:41 AM Yeah I guess you're right Effsee, it must have been Cameron .Got that Wanton Muse mentioned above too. I will have to dig 'em out and have a listen . |
Subject: RE: 'Naughty' Songs by Famous Folk From: Effsee Date: 21 Sep 09 - 11:10 PM Mariner, Isla St.Clair would have just been a bairn in the '60s! |
Subject: RE: 'Naughty' Songs by Famous Folk From: topical tom Date: 21 Sep 09 - 10:53 PM Interesting. The rhythm and rhyme seem quite close to "The Shooting of Dan Macgrew" and "The Cremation of Sam Macgee" by Robert service, the poet of the Yukon. |
Subject: RE: 'Naughty' Songs by Famous Folk From: Beer Date: 21 Sep 09 - 09:07 PM Interesting what is said here about Eskimo Nell. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ballad_of_Eskimo_Nell Beer (adrien) |
Subject: RE: 'Naughty' Songs by Famous Folk From: Tattie Bogle Date: 21 Sep 09 - 08:27 PM Plenty in Robert Burns' "Merry Muses" including "Nine inches will please a lady" and the bawdy version of "John Anderson, My Jo". And lots of songs with "double entendres" in them, such as "Twanky Dillo" (as sung by the Watersons)and "The Banks of Red Roses". Very symbolic musical instruments! |
Subject: RE: 'Naughty' Songs by Famous Folk From: Joe_F Date: 21 Sep 09 - 08:01 PM Mention of the CPR (Canadian Pacific Railroad) in "Eskimo Nell" suggests Canadian origin. |
Subject: RE: 'Naughty' Songs by Famous Folk From: brezhnev Date: 21 Sep 09 - 11:05 AM There's Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger's The Wanton Muse - songs all about 'the joys and pleasures attendant on the consummation of the body's appetite'. |
Subject: RE: 'Naughty' Songs by Famous Folk From: MARINER Date: 21 Sep 09 - 10:57 AM If memory serves me well, i think there was an album out in the 60's called "Songs of Love ,Lust and loose living". One of the artists featured thereon was Tony Britton.There was also an Isla on it, Can't remember if it was Cameron or StClair.Still have the album but it's stacked somewhere behind about a thousand others, so is not easy to get me hands on it. |
Subject: RE: 'Naughty' Songs by Famous Folk From: Acorn4 Date: 21 Sep 09 - 09:12 AM And of course the Who "Squeeze Box" - a mighty chart hit! |
Subject: RE: 'Naughty' Songs by Famous Folk From: Old Vermin Date: 21 Sep 09 - 08:53 AM "the hole in the middle refuses to piddle" surely |
Subject: RE: 'Naughty' Songs by Famous Folk From: MGM·Lion Date: 21 Sep 09 - 05:13 AM I think the attribution to Service only obtains Over There: over here it is always regarded as a sort of British take on the Wild West mytheme. Its usages appear redolent of British rather than American English usage — e.g I may be wrong, but I think the word 'piddle', as a noun for the act of urinating, which occurs in line 3 of Eskimo Nell, is not as much used in USA as in UK... I am sure I could adduce other such instances if I had the text before me; but alas I no longer possess a copy. [In fact I find on checking that the DT version gives 'one-string fiddle' at that point: but surely 'he bends in the middle for want of a piddle' is far superior as description of what happens as a man ages to 'bends in the middle like a one-string fiddle' -- far be it from me to suggest that any traditional artefact should lack variations in its versions — but surely 'want of a piddle' here is a much BETTER version than 'one-string fiddle' &, as I aver, far more likely to be an English English usage?] |
Subject: RE: 'Naughty' Songs by Famous Folk From: Barbara Date: 20 Sep 09 - 04:45 PM Aaaaa, you Brits just like to take credit for everything... I had most often heard it attributed to R. Service and it seems to me well in keeping with his style, but anything that obscene is probably not going to have the author or authors leaping up and saying "Me! Me! I wrote it, yes I did." And as others have said, it certainly could be a parody in the style of Service. But apart from the obscenity factor, I fail to see how the humor (or humour) in Eskimo Nell is that different from say, the Cremation of Sam McGee. Blessings Barbara |
Subject: RE: 'Naughty' Songs by Famous Folk From: MGM·Lion Date: 20 Sep 09 - 01:24 PM I always took Eskimo Nell to be, as you suggest, a parody or pastiche of the sort of thing Robert Service wrote so earnestly; & probably by an Englishman rather than American. R Service doesn't come across in his work as a very humorous sort of man, of the sort who would wish to pastiche his own work. Still & all, you never know: there was the time when Graham Greene kept winning New Statesman literary competition 2nd prizes with parodies of his own novels. — I still like my Coward·&·Caribou theory Though. |
Subject: RE: 'Naughty' Songs by Famous Folk From: Steve Howlett Date: 20 Sep 09 - 12:46 PM I thought Eskimo Nell was by Robert Service, who also wrote The Shooting (or Ballad) of Dan McGrew, and The Cremation of Sam McGee. It's certainly in the same style, but could be a competent pastiche. |
Subject: RE: 'Naughty' Songs by Famous Folk From: MGM·Lion Date: 20 Sep 09 - 11:52 AM I have heard Eskimo Nell attributed to both A P Herbert & Noel Coward. I think Coward quite likely, actually: remember "Even cariboux lie about and snooze" in 'Mad Dogs & Englishmen'; & cf Deadwood Dick having to be content with "A moose or two, a caribou, A bison cow or a crow; But Deadwood Dick was King of the Prick, And he found it fucking slow". Coward perhaps had a penchant for 'caribou' as a rhyme-word. |
Subject: RE: 'Naughty' Songs by Famous Folk From: GUEST,Arthur Stiffy Date: 20 Sep 09 - 11:51 AM 2 or 3 Relatively well known R'n'B and Soul names on this notorious compilation CD; http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002C659EM/ref=dm_sp_alb/177-0273771-1294749?ie=UTF8&qid=1253461500&sr=8-5 |
Subject: RE: 'Naughty' Songs by Famous Folk From: Joe_F Date: 20 Sep 09 - 11:37 AM I have heard two rumors of respectable authorship of bawdy songs: That Kipling wrote "The Bastard King of England" (extremely unlikely, IMO), and that Ogden Nash wrote "The Four Bastards" (absolutely true; it was published under his name by a reputable publisher). |
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