folk songs about biscuits?

Subject: RE: folk songs about biscuits?
From: Barbara Shaw
Date: 12 Jun 12 - 09:30 AM

Pig in a Pen has a verse about biscuits:

Bake them biscuits, baby
Bake 'em good and brown
When you get them biscuits baked
We're Alabama bound.

Garrison Keillor does a commercial song about "powdermilk biscuits" on his Prairie Home Companion radio program.

Rhonda Vincent is sponsored by the Martha White Flour Company, and I believe she mentions biscuits in the commercial.

...and I wrote a song once with the verse:

Leave me the biscuits, baby, leave me the ham
Leave me some coffee in the can
Take all your lyin' cheatin' underhanded scams
And leave me just as fast as you can.

Subject: RE: folk songs about biscuits?
From: GUEST,Spidercake
Date: 12 Jun 12 - 09:03 AM

Roy Bookbinder sings this song:

Biscuit Blues

CHO:      Don't put no more baking powder in your bread you see,
    'Cause you know your biscuits are tall enough for me.
    Don't put no more sugar in your jelly roll, you see,
    Your jelly roll is sweet enough for me.

Some men like cold cuts,
Some they like's cold tongue.
Some men don't like biscuits,
You know they like them doggone big fat buns.
Don't put no more baking powder in your bread you see,
Your biscuits are tall enough for me.

Some men you know they's straight,
Some are crooked as a barrel of snakes.
Don't like biscuits, they don't like buns,
You know they like them old flat batter cakes.
Don't put no more baking powder in your bread you see,
'Cause you know your biscuits are tall enough for me.

Subject: RE: folk songs about biscuits?
From: Geoff the Duck
Date: 12 Jun 12 - 07:19 AM

Away with rum


We never eat biscuits, cos biscuits have yeast
And one little bite turns a man to a beast
Can you imagine the shame and disgrace
To be found in the gutter with crumbs on your face

Subject: RE: folk songs about biscuits?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 12 Jun 12 - 05:39 AM

Cookie Cookie! lend me your comb

Subject: RE: folk songs about biscuits?
From: Mo the caller
Date: 12 Jun 12 - 05:19 AM

There's a biscuit in the Kipper's song "Bring us in Good Tea"

Bring us no Home-Brew
We're not inclined to risk it
Bring us in good tea
And - alright - just one biscuit

(approximation from a failing memory)

Valmai, I think you must have misheard some of those songs :)

Subject: RE: folk songs about biscuits?
From: John P
Date: 11 Jun 12 - 09:47 PM

There's "Gee, Mom I Want To Go Home"

The biscuits in the Army
They say are mighty fine,
One rolled off the table
And killed a buddy of mine.

I don't want no more of Army life . . .

Subject: RE: folk songs about biscuits?
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Jun 12 - 06:56 PM

If you can't negotiate a suitable fee you could try writing something about shortbread.

Subject: RE: folk songs about biscuits?
From: matt milton
Date: 11 Jun 12 - 06:16 PM

I'm happy to hear about biscuits from either side of the pond.

I've never had biscuits of the US kind, but one day... this thread is making me peckish.

Subject: RE: folk songs about biscuits?
From: Anne Neilson
Date: 11 Jun 12 - 04:51 PM

Re. the Tunnock's Caramel Wafer song, Adam McNaughtan was privately commissioned by the family to produce something for the centenary celebrations/ birthday of the current chairman -- but it was so catchy that it was even used in some of the tv adverts for a short while.

When sung to an unsuspecting audience, there's always a grin of delight when reaching the final few words of each verse. And a Scottish audience, familiar with the tune, will happily join in with those words after verse 1.

Subject: RE: folk songs about biscuits?
From: Bill D
Date: 11 Jun 12 - 04:06 PM

and my point exactly... you get US biscuits unless you specify otherwise.

Subject: RE: folk songs about biscuits?
From: Sean Belt
Date: 11 Jun 12 - 04:03 PM

The fiddle tune "Walkin' In My Sleep" has biscuit lyrics:

Bake those biscuits, baby
Bake 'em good and brown
When I eat my breakfast,
I'm Alabama bound.

If you see my baby
Tell her won't you please,
When she bakes them biscuits
Roll up her dirty sleeves.

If you see my baby
Tell her if you can,
When she bakes them biscuits
Wash her dirty hands.

Among others.

Subject: RE: folk songs about biscuits?
From: Bill D
Date: 11 Jun 12 - 02:46 PM

"Do each of those exceptions stop something being a 'biscuit'?"

well, depending on the side of the pond. :>)

Ask for 'biscuits' in the US, and you get a baked item, fluffy and/or doughy.

If you want a biscuit as in UK confection, you ask for **cookies**.....hundreds of varieties, in stores or bakeries.

What's the point in revisiting the distinction every time? Well, there is this thread title which does NOT specify the language version, and gets responses in both languages.

Subject: RE: folk songs about biscuits?
From: DocMando
Date: 11 Jun 12 - 01:57 PM

Some folks sing "Bake them biscuits brown" instead of "Turn them hoecakes roun'" in the song "Bile them cabbage down". That's how Andy Griffith did it, anyway.

Subject: RE: folk songs about biscuits?
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 11 Jun 12 - 11:06 AM

A Jaffa cake is a cake!
Here's the VAT guidance on the decision!

Subject: RE: folk songs about biscuits?
From: Mr Red
Date: 11 Jun 12 - 10:52 AM

Jaffa Cakes - are they biscuits - in the legal sense?

Subject: RE: folk songs about biscuits?
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 11 Jun 12 - 10:34 AM

Bill D: The later suggestions are mostly referencing US model of 'biscuits'....meaning something close to scones....often buttered with jam or 'jelly' ....or covered with gravy.
Do each of those exceptions stop something being a 'biscuit'?
What about 'Jammie dodgers'?

Subject: RE: folk songs about biscuits?
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 11 Jun 12 - 10:30 AM

Risk it!
Frisk It!

Subject: RE: folk songs about biscuits?
From: Crowhugger
Date: 11 Jun 12 - 10:28 AM

What rhymes with 'biscuit'?

Subject: RE: folk songs about biscuits?
From: Bill D
Date: 11 Jun 12 - 10:07 AM

The later suggestions are mostly referencing US model of 'biscuits'....meaning something close to scones....often buttered with jam or 'jelly' ....or covered with gravy.

Subject: RE: folk songs about biscuits?
From: Valmai Goodyear
Date: 11 Jun 12 - 08:46 AM

There's a reference to 'eating Captain's biscuits' in The Handsome Cabin Boy. It appears to cause pregnancies.

Ginny Keep Your Oatcakes Warm
Mama's Little Baby Loves Shortcake, Shortcake
Miss Hoolichan's Christmas Cake
A Poor Wafering Stranger
The Bonny Bay of Biscuit-O
The Cookie She's A Pretty Bird

Valmai (Lewes)

Subject: RE: folk songs about biscuits?
From: wysiwyg
Date: 11 Jun 12 - 08:15 AM

Good Bunch of Biscuits-- Louvin Brothers

~S~

Subject: RE: folk songs about biscuits?
From: Arkie
Date: 11 Jun 12 - 07:51 AM

I know of several songs about biscuits but they do not really fit into the parameters you have described. They are more like country songs or recitations. But here they are:

Please Pass the Biscuits - Gene Sullivan & Wiley Walker (Jimmy Dean's recording has had wider circulation)

Get Your Biscuits in the Oven and Your Buns in the Bed - Kinky Friedman

I'm Gonna Bake My Biscuits - Little Miss Higgins

Pans of Biscuits - Kate Campbell (possibly a parody of Palms of Victory)

Pass the Biscuits Mirandy - Spike Jones

Subject: RE: folk songs about biscuits?
From: Dave Sutherland
Date: 11 Jun 12 - 07:35 AM

"The Topman and the Afterguard" has reference to weevilly old biscuits.

Subject: RE: folk songs about biscuits?
From: Scabby Douglas
Date: 11 Jun 12 - 07:32 AM

And there is Adam McNaughtan's magnificent "Tunnock's Caramel Wafer"!

The melody is the pipe tune "The Barren Rocks of Aden"

TUNNOCK'S CARAMEL WAFERS - Adam McNaughtan

A hundred year an' mair's gone roon
Since Thomas Tunnock raised eighty poun'
An' proudly paid his money doon
To be a purveyor an' baker.
At weddin's, pic-nics an' soirees,
Wi' bags o' buns an' full high teas
Tom Tunnock showed his expertise
As Lanarkshire's pie-maker.
But little was he thinkin' as the dough he made
For the mutton pies an' tottie scones that he purveyed,
He was layin' the foundation o' a world-wide trade In Tunnock's Caramel wafers.

When the First World War was done,
Archie Tunnock, Thomas's son,
Came back hame to Uddingston,
Breid-winner o' the faim'ly.
Archie baked an' Archie planned,
An' he watched the company expand
To be the finest in the land
For wholesome food an' hamely.
Wi' a growin' reputation for traditional fare
An' a knowledge o' technology beyond compare,
Profits ploughed intae machinery a' helped prepare For the Tunnock's Caramel Wafer.

The Saicont War brought mony a qualm:
Synthetic cream an' turnip jam
An' trifle bein' delivert by tram
Wherever they could send it.
But Archie Tunnock had a scheme
To match a sweet-toothed nation's dream,
A chocolate biscuit treat supreme
When the sugar rationin' endit.
Steyin' at the bakin' plate frae morn till night,
Mixin' caramel an' milk until he got it right;
In nineteen fifty-wan the world got its first bite At a Tunnock's Caramel Wafer.

The rest o' the tale is easy told:
The distinctive foil of red and gold,
The vans that multiplied ten-fold,
Deliverin' Caramel Wafers.
Frae Motherwell to Martinique
Three million people every week,
Jew an' Arab, Turk an' Greek,
Agree on their favourite wafer.
But though the Caramel Wafer may be known world-wide,
It's always been in Uddingston that Tunnocks bide,
An' the firm an' the community and faim'ly's pride Is the Tunnock's Caramel Wafer.

Subject: RE: folk songs about biscuits?
From: matt milton
Date: 11 Jun 12 - 07:32 AM

thanks for the 'Custard Creams' suggestion.

It refers to Huntley & Palmer, who actually merged with Peak Freans at one point (Wikipedia tells me). So Huntley & Palmer biscuits would have been manufactured at the factory I'll be at.

A comedy song might work well anyway, it'd certainly be quite an absurd juxtaposition with the free-improvisation art-music being made in the hall. Which is apparently huge and cavernous.

CUSTARD CREAMS

Those midnight snacks bring what you always dread;
Crumbs in your blanket and your feather bed;
Crumbs without number
Keep you from slumber;
Yield up the night time to old custard creams.
Yield up the night time to old custard creams.

The late night sandwhich and the giger nut
Stick in your shoulder;lie underfoot,
Huntley and Palmer
There is no armour
Yield up the darkness to old custard creams
Yield up the darkness to old custard creams

Barm cakes and biscuits;whole loaves of bread
Mate on your mattress;breed in your bed
One million croutons
All on one futon
And down your duvet there's old custard creams
And down your duvet there's old custard creams

I think I know now why my mother said
That gentlemen dont take tarts to bed
And when you're restive
Blame the digestive
You'll find no comfort with old custard creams
You'll find no comfort with old custard creams

Subject: RE: folk songs about biscuits?
From: GUEST,Pete
Date: 11 Jun 12 - 07:31 AM

Plenty of shanties refer to hardtack.

Subject: RE: folk songs about biscuits?
From: GUEST,Bizibod
Date: 11 Jun 12 - 07:24 AM

Howsabout the parody of John o'Dreams ?
Custard Creams by Les Barker.

Subject: RE: folk songs about biscuits?
From: Bernard
Date: 11 Jun 12 - 07:19 AM

Hmmm... here in the UK a biscuit is completely different from its US counterpart...

In the UK we also differentiate between 'biscuits' and 'cookies' - a biscuit is dry (from the French meaning 'baked twice'), but a cookie is moist.

I suppose you could consider Dylan Owen's hilarious 'Battle of the Biscuits' which mentions a few well-known types, and Les Barker's 'Custard Creams', an infamous parody of Bill Caddick's 'John o'Dreams'... though perhaps the latter is funnier when you know the original.

Subject: RE: folk songs about biscuits?
From: GUEST,Bob Coltman
Date: 11 Jun 12 - 07:02 AM

I can only think of two offhand:

The biscuits in Blind Boy Fuller's "Your Biscuits Are Plenty Big Enough for Me" are strictly metaphorical.

"How Many Biscuits Can You Eat" was a hit for Stringbean and others ...

There's a floating verse in Appalachian folksong, too:

Bake them biscuits good and brown,
Lay them sweet potaters round and round.

None of these, however, seems quite what you're looking for. I suggest you look in early country music (roughly 1920s-1950s), if you allow that within your definition of folk songs.

Bob

Subject: RE: folk songs about biscuits?
From: MartinRyan
Date: 11 Jun 12 - 06:57 AM

And then, of course, there's always Bolands Away

;>)>

Regards.

p.s. more seriously - there must be a few seasongs with reference to biscuit...

Subject: RE: folk songs about biscuits?
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 11 Jun 12 - 06:51 AM

Garibaldi

Subject: RE: folk songs about biscuits?
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 11 Jun 12 - 06:47 AM

I thought Jacob's ladder was in Cheddar!

Subject: RE: folk songs about biscuits?
From: MartinRyan
Date: 11 Jun 12 - 06:43 AM

If you are in Ireland, you could always try "We are climbing Jacob's Ladder"!

Rwegards

Subject: RE: folk songs about biscuits?
From: matt milton
Date: 11 Jun 12 - 06:42 AM

It has occurred to me that there are quite a few American songs (blues/Afro-American) mentioning biscuits. Generally in the "if you don't like my peaches, please don't shake my tree" school of double-entendres...

Subject: folk songs about biscuits?
From: matt milton
Date: 11 Jun 12 - 06:40 AM

this is, you might be surprised to hear, a serious question!

If anyone can think of any songs concerning biscuits - ideally the manufacture of them in a factory/industrial setting - I'd be delighted to hear about them.

In fact, songs about general food preparation in an industrial setting would also be helpful!

I ask because I've been invited to participate in a site-specific avant-garde performance art event in a disused biscuit factory.