Lyr Add: Hot Pot (from Gracie Fields)

Subject: Lyr Add: HOT POT (from Gracie Fields)
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 28 Mar 11 - 09:16 PM

Found at Bill Hanks' web site - Click to play an mp3 file.


HOT POT *
As sung by Gracie Fields

Poets like the stars above. The sailors like the sea,
An' some men like their missus. That's a form of lunacy.
I only like to eat an' drink. I don't care for the rest.
I'll bet I'll make you hungry when you 'ear what I like best.

Oh, I do like a basin full of 'ot 'otpot.
It's all right when it's not, but it's better when it's 'ot.
Real good stuff. That's no bluff.
Once you taste the flavour then you can't get 'alf enough.
It's the fine old feed in Lancashire, the country I was born in,
So I do like a basin full of 'ot 'otpot on a cold an' frosty mornin'.

Christmas comes but once a year. I'm glad it doesn't stay.
We always 'ave a turkey at our house on Christmas day.
A turkey's only got two legs, as ev'rybody knows.
I always sing as they pass on to me the parson's nose:

Oh, I do like a basin full of 'ot 'otpot.
It's all right when it's not, but it's better when it's 'ot.
Real good stuff. That's no bluff.
You know what you can do with all your puddin' an' your duff.
It's the fine old feed in Lancashire, the country I was born in,
So I do like a basin full of 'ot 'otpot on a cold an' frosty mornin'.

I've just been made the mother of a bouncin' bonny boy,
An' as it is me first offense, it filled me 'eart with joy.
He caused a great commotion in the 'ouse the other day.
We offered him some blackthorn(?). 'E said, "Take that away!"

Oh, I do like a basin full of 'ot 'otpot.
It's all right when it's not, but it's better when it's 'ot.
I'd like some. You'd like some.
It's faster than the poultice stickin' round your tummy-tum.
It's the fine old feed in Lancashire, the country I was born in,
So I do like a basin full of 'ot 'otpot on a cold an' frosty mornin'.


[Title as given at Bill Hanks' web site, but I can't find any confirmation that a song exists by that exact title. The British Library does have sheet music for a song titled I DO LIKE A BASIN FULL OF HOT-POT by F. Shuff, ©1928; and the U.S. Copyright Office lists a song called OH, I DO LIKE A BASINFUL OF HOT-POT by Frank Taylor & Fred Shuff, ©1928.]

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Hot Pot (from Gracie Fields)
From: RunrigFan
Date: 29 Mar 11 - 09:26 AM

http://www.musichallcds.com/var17_page.htm

It's listed here ;)

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Hot Pot (from Gracie Fields)
From: GUEST,Ian Crickett
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 07:11 PM

I used to have this on an old 78 record I bought from a jumble sale as a child some 55 years ago. The title was definitely 'Hot Pot'. It's now gone the way of most shellac records of its age, but I've sung the song at various 'Lancashire Nights' in the 1970s, and always thought the last two lines of the second verse were:

'A turkey only has two legs as everybody knows.
It always seems what comes to me's what's left o't Parson's nose'.

From my memory of it, I also think the actual word in the third verse to replace 'blackthorn(?)' should be Glaxo, a common proprietary baby food in the 1930s.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Hot Pot (from Gracie Fields)
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 17 Aug 11 - 09:17 PM

I have listened again to the recording at Bill Hanks' web site (see my link above) and I still believe my transcription is accurate, in those places where Ian Crickett remembers something different.

Ian, your memory may be correct, but that would mean there is a different version of the song out there somewhere.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Hot Pot (from Gracie Fields)
From: GUEST,Andrew Sennett
Date: 16 Jan 22 - 04:16 AM

I've a copy of the sheet music that Jim mentioned upstream (in 2011).

I Do Like a Basin Full of Hot-Pot, sung with enormous success by Nellie Wallace, published by Campbell Connelly & Co. 10 Denmark St, London WC2.

By Fred Shuff with ukulele arrangement by Harry J. Stafford.

Differences in lyrics between Gracie Field's version and as sung by Nellie Wallace are:

(1) consistently instead of "'ot 'otpot", "Hot-Pot Hot!"

(2) "A turkey's only got two legs as ev'ry body knows,
I always sing as they pass on to me the parson's nose".

(3) "It's a fine old feed in Lan-ca-sheer, The county I was born in".

(4) We offered him some Glax-o, he said 'E said, "Take that stuff a way!".

Joseph Nathan and Co. (later known as Glaxo Laboratories) began producing dried-milk baby food in 1904 in Bunnythorpe, New Zealand, first known as Defiance, then as Glaxo (from lacto), under the slogan "Glaxo builds bonny babies." (source - wikipedia entry for GlaxoSmithKline, consulted today - 16/01/2022).

I've not found any metadata for any recording of Nellie Wallace's version - would be interested if anyone finds one. In the meantime, will learn the accompaniment and find someone to sing along!