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Great Put-Downs
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Subject: Great Put-Downs From: Andy7 Date: 30 May 17 - 04:37 AM My favourite is from a few years ago, when I was looking for a new guitar. The salesman was giving me various instruments to try. "This one's got no fret markers," I said, as he handed me one. Taking it back again, he replied, "If you need fret markers, you don't need a guitar this good!" |
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Subject: RE: Great Put-Downs From: Georgiansilver Date: 30 May 17 - 04:45 AM Lady Astor said to Winston Churchill ''Mr Churchill, if I were your wife, I would put poison in your drink''.... to which Winston replied '' Madam, if you were my wife, I'd drink it''!!!! |
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Subject: RE: Great Put-Downs From: GUEST,Ray Date: 30 May 17 - 07:22 AM I once heard the late, great, Jake Thackray say to an annoying folk club organiser - "I'm being paid for being a pillock; what's your excuse?" |
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Subject: RE: Great Put-Downs From: saulgoldie Date: 30 May 17 - 07:41 AM From Robert Zimmerman: "I ain't saying ya treated me unkind, Ya couldha done better, but I don't mind, *You just sorta wasted my precious time!!* Saul |
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Subject: RE: Great Put-Downs From: Will Fly Date: 30 May 17 - 08:06 AM From an early, live Robin Williams performance: "A mind is a beautiful thing - why waste it?" |
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Subject: RE: Great Put-Downs From: fat B****rd Date: 30 May 17 - 09:44 AM "Excuse me, but you've mistaken me for someone who gives a shit" |
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Subject: RE: Great Put-Downs From: gillymor Date: 30 May 17 - 09:52 AM Long ago 2 of my buddies were in a bar and were pretty blitzed and one of them, Pete, was trying hard to pick up their beautiful barmaid. Pete finally gave up and hauled out his member and said to her "see what you'll be missing out on?" and she responded "That looks like a dick, only smaller." |
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Subject: RE: Great Put-Downs From: meself Date: 30 May 17 - 09:58 AM "Your mind is on vacation, but your mouth is working overtime." - Mose Allison. (Or as I first heard it sung by an American blues-guitar guy: "Your mind is on vacation, but your mouth has so many jobs to do, it's working overtime.") "Your eyeballs look like a roadmap; they're looking two different ways;/You've got your false teeth in one hand, your wig in the other,/And you haven't looked this good in days." - from "You Done Tore Your Play-House Down" by ... ? |
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Subject: RE: Great Put-Downs From: gillymor Date: 30 May 17 - 10:12 AM Once my former wife asked me the infamous question "Do these jeans make me look fat?" Well, she had put on a few pounds and I guess I couldn't pass up this line, "No, it's the fat that makes you look fat." I did say former wife. |
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Subject: RE: Great Put-Downs From: Vic Smith Date: 30 May 17 - 10:35 AM The great American song collector, Frank Warner took the wonderful Frank Proffitt to the Newport Folk festival in its early days. There he heard the amazingly technical playing of Earl Scruggs for the first time. Frank listened carefully then, "I sure wish I could play the banjo as fast as that," said Frank, " ... and then not do so!" |
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Subject: RE: Great Put-Downs From: gillymor Date: 30 May 17 - 10:51 AM A couple I've heard (though I'm not sure these would qualify as put-downs) credited to Jascha Heifetz: After a concert a woman said to him "Your Guarneri never sounded so beautiful" and Heifetz then held the violin to his ear and said "Funny, I don't hear anything?" An admirerer said to him "I'd give anything to play like you" to which he responded "Would you give 16 hours a day for your entire life?" |
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Subject: RE: Great Put-Downs From: Dave Hanson Date: 30 May 17 - 10:52 AM and again, Bessie Braddock to Winston Churchil, ' Winston you are drunk ' to which Churchill replied ' yes madam and you are ugly, but I'll be sober in the morning ' Dave H |
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Subject: RE: Great Put-Downs From: Thompson Date: 30 May 17 - 11:00 AM Some long-forgotten starlet: "Oh, I talk exactly like I think." Putter-downer: "But more often!" |
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Subject: RE: Great Put-Downs From: Mark Ross Date: 30 May 17 - 12:09 PM "And now, here's the man who did for Folk Music what pantyhose die for finger fucking!" |
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Subject: RE: Great Put-Downs From: Newport Boy Date: 30 May 17 - 12:49 PM Winston Churchill made a habit of it. In the 1945 election, about his opponent: "Mr Attlee is a modest man, with much to be modest about." |
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Subject: RE: Great Put-Downs From: fat B****rd Date: 30 May 17 - 03:23 PM "If I had a dog looked like you I'd shave it's ass and make it walk backwards" |
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Subject: RE: Great Put-Downs From: Joe_F Date: 30 May 17 - 06:08 PM Boy: I have always wished to believe that Churchill never said that, because it is stupid and might well be taken as bullying. Mr Atlee, of course, would have been too much a gentleman to point out that what one is modest about is one's virtues & achievements, and therefore, if one has much to be modest about, etc. * Professor, at a doctor's oral: What are Robert Oppenheimer's important contributions to physics? Student: I don't know. Professor: That is the correct answer. Another physicist once said: That isn't right. It isn't even wrong. |
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Subject: RE: Great Put-Downs From: eftifino Date: 31 May 17 - 05:34 AM My wife worked for an airline, and one day she was verbally abused by an agent wanting a free upgrade. She received a grovelling apology after she said to him: "You obviously go through life under the impression that the person with whom you are speaking is less important than you"! And once on a bus, she was jostled quite roughly by a guy pushing past to get off. She said: "Oh, please forgive me! I never realized that you had no manners!" You don't mess with my missus! |
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Subject: RE: Great Put-Downs From: GUEST,Sol Date: 31 May 17 - 06:01 AM Ken Tynan the famous critic once reviewed a new monster production that cost a fortune. It had a huge cast, over-elaborate scenery, etc. with no expense spared. His column the following day said "The costumes were lovely". |
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Subject: RE: Great Put-Downs From: GUEST,Mike Yates Date: 31 May 17 - 06:03 AM No idea where I heard this, but a singer was being heckled by a drunk. Eventually the singer stopped, looked at the drunk, and said, "It's alright, son, I remember what it was like when I had my first pint". |
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Subject: RE: Great Put-Downs From: Will Fly Date: 31 May 17 - 06:27 AM The rock'n roll trio I was playing in (many, many years ago) was playing at a club in a small town in East Sussex. We'd just finished playing Lonnie Donegan's version of "Rock Island Line" and someone at the back called out, "My old man's a dustman". Before I had time to think I just murmured into the mic, "Oh dear!" and the audience fell about laughing. Not intended as a put-down - just an off-the-cuff remark. Luckily it was taken in good part. Most performers have an arsenal of sarcastic put-downs ready for the potential heckler. I've only ever used one of them - for a particularly persistent interrupter: "You can go home now - your cage has been cleaned out." Remember, however: if you're prepared to use the put-down, also be prepared to deal with the offended one who might want to put you down... in more ways than one. |
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Subject: RE: Great Put-Downs From: Jim Carroll Date: 31 May 17 - 06:47 AM I've always treasured my mother's comments on my first efforts to be a singer: "If you were singing for shit you wouldn't get the smell of it" Jim Carroll |
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Subject: RE: Great Put-Downs From: Jim Carroll Date: 31 May 17 - 07:00 AM Veteran Clare fiddle player, Junior Crehan once commented on a young musician who ruined sessions by playing too fast "He'll be a great musician when he's too old to move that fast" When asked about accordeons at sessions he said, "their boxes make great seats when it's crowded". Jim Carroll |
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Subject: RE: Great Put-Downs From: banjoman Date: 31 May 17 - 07:10 AM The mute swan only makes a sound on its deathbed. Pity the same cant be said of some singers |
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Subject: RE: Great Put-Downs From: Steve Shaw Date: 31 May 17 - 07:43 AM Albert Einstein's fiddle teacher, frustrated by the great man's lack of progress, was heard to shout "For goodness, sake, Albert - can't you count?" |
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Subject: RE: Great Put-Downs From: Mr Red Date: 31 May 17 - 09:42 AM I once heard a less than polite lass say "I can't be bothered with small talk" I held back on the rejoinder "How small do you want the talk?" but it is useful for impatient people. |
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Subject: RE: Great Put-Downs From: Dave Hanson Date: 31 May 17 - 10:04 AM Swans sing before they die, Twer no bad thing, Should some folks die before they sing. someone once said to me, ' the more I have to drink, the better you sound ' Dave H |
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Subject: RE: Great Put-Downs From: GUEST,Dave Sunshine Date: 31 May 17 - 10:47 AM I have used these to hecklers 'Thank you for your interruption...give me your address and I'll be round tonight to interrupt while you're performing' When God gave you teeth he spoiled a good arsehole I refuse to have a battle of wits with an unarmed person Go and stand near the wall...that's plastered too Ah...a bad case of bottle fatigue If you're going to heckle at least be coherent |
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Subject: RE: Great Put-Downs From: gillymor Date: 31 May 17 - 10:54 AM When I used to do solo gigs friends would show up and engage in some good-natured heckling and I would respond to particularly barbed comments with, "Ah Mom, I told you not to come tonight." Always got a laugh with that one. |
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Subject: RE: Great Put-Downs From: meself Date: 31 May 17 - 11:05 AM A couple on recordings: 1) probably the one Mike Yates was referencing above, Doc Watson: "That's all right son, I remember my first drink" (or 'beer' or 'the first time I was drunk' - definitely not 'pint', though!); 2) Frank Zappa, when a rowdy is shouting that the cop who is dealing with him thinks he's superior because of his uniform: "Don't kid yourself: we're all wearing uniforms." Speaking of Mike Yates, there are a couple I read over on Musical Traditions. One of the old Irish fiddlers - can't recall who - was playing in a session in London - sitting next to a didgeridoo-player. After a while, the fiddler turns and asks, "What is that?" The other answers, "A didgeridoo." Fiddler: "Well, didgeri-don't!" One of the famous 20th C. Irish pipers - again, forget who - was asked by some smart-ass why he played 'so fast'. His reply: "Because I bloody-well can!" |
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Subject: RE: Great Put-Downs From: GUEST,ced2 Date: 31 May 17 - 11:34 AM My mother to me or my sister when we were apologising for breaking something or for some other sin/misdemeanour "And how do you look when you are pleased?" |
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Subject: RE: Great Put-Downs From: Dave Hanson Date: 31 May 17 - 02:59 PM The piper in question was Finbar Furey. John Shehan told a tale about an old man he met at a country gig with The Dubliners, he said to John, ' tell me son, do you read music or are you gifted ? ' Dave H |
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Subject: RE: Great Put-Downs From: meself Date: 31 May 17 - 04:17 PM Old fella said to me one time, "Are you a musician - or do you play the guitar?" |
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Subject: RE: Great Put-Downs From: Tattie Bogle Date: 31 May 17 - 07:51 PM Medical one: "if you had just one more neurone, you'd have a synapse". (Sure I posted this on a similar thread some years back!) |
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Subject: RE: Great Put-Downs From: robomatic Date: 31 May 17 - 08:13 PM A splendid case of ignoramus self-putdown: A would-be thespian is on stage bombing the Hamlet soliloquy and being roundly panned by the audience, finally breaks role and screams: "What're you booing at ME for?? I didn't write this shite!" |
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Subject: RE: Great Put-Downs From: Acorn4 Date: 01 Jun 17 - 04:10 AM A friend of mine to a noisy couple of drunks at the bar:- "I didn't realise this place had two village idiots - are you on a jobshare?" |
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Subject: RE: Great Put-Downs From: Rusty Dobro Date: 01 Jun 17 - 05:45 AM 'Ah, I thought you were here - I saw your plough parked outside!' Bruce Forsyth, to a heckler in a Suffolk country town. |
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Subject: RE: Great Put-Downs From: GUEST,RA Date: 01 Jun 17 - 08:34 AM I've heard this attributed to Alex Campbell, speaking to a heckler: 'Do you know what they call someone like you where I come from? A baiter - and you, sir, are a master'. |
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Subject: RE: Great Put-Downs From: GUEST,Sol Date: 01 Jun 17 - 10:09 AM To a heckler by someone (I can't remember who). "Next time you come, bring your mum & dad and I'll marry them" |
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Subject: RE: Great Put-Downs From: Tattie Bogle Date: 01 Jun 17 - 10:24 AM Eric Bogle, to 2 very large men who created quite a disturbance trying to squeeze their way in late to their 2 front row seats (in Livingston, Scotland): "You're LATE! I've come all the way from Australia, and I managed to get here on time. Why couldn't you?" |
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Subject: RE: Great Put-Downs From: Raggytash Date: 01 Jun 17 - 11:12 AM Many years ago a well known folk singer played the club I frequented. He had tried everything to put down a drunken heckler without sucess. Eventually he went to his guitar case pulled out a starting pistol and "aimed" at the heckler and shouted **** OFF!! It worked and gave great amusement to the assembled company who were thoroughly cheesed off with the heckler. |
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Subject: RE: Great Put-Downs From: bubblyrat Date: 01 Jun 17 - 12:53 PM Apparently, some while back,a famous , beautiful English actress was at a party when she felt someone tugging at her dress. She looked down ,to see the well known but rather diminutive comedian Charlie Drake, obviously the worse for drink . Looking up at her imploringly , he mumbled "I should really,really like to make love to you" , to which the actress , after a slight pause, said " Well if you DO, and I find out about ,I shall be EXTREMELY annoyed !". |
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Subject: RE: Great Put-Downs From: Joe_F Date: 01 Jun 17 - 06:06 PM According to an old story, Gladstone, interrupted repeatedly by a drunken man at a meeting, fixed him with his eye & said: "May I request the gentleman who has, not once but repeatedly, interrupted my observations with his interjections, to extend to me that large measure of courtesy which, were I in his place and he in mine, I should most unhesitatingly extend to him." The drunk was instantly sobered and shut up. |
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Subject: RE: Great Put-Downs From: EBarnacle Date: 02 Jun 17 - 01:55 AM I am the moderator of an on line discussion group which has its Right Wing trolls. One of them said to me that my comments about the Donald were disrespectful. I responded that I was merely following a tradition which began with John Adams. Another of her compatriots asked me if I were there when some of Trumps papers were shredded. I responded that I thought the performer who played Baron Munchausen on 30's radio had died long ago but his soul lives on. [His putdown after being challenged about his tales was always "Wos you dere, Cholly?"] |
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Subject: RE: Great Put-Downs From: GUEST Date: 02 Jun 17 - 02:24 AM "Hecklers get my goat! You can have him for free. I'll put him in the back of your car and he'll shit all the way home. A bit like carrying coals to Newcastle, that!" (well known folk singer, to a Geordie heckler) "If I'd have wanted to hear from an arsehole I would have farted...." (the late Fred Wedlock) |
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Subject: RE: Great Put-Downs From: Jim Carroll Date: 02 Jun 17 - 02:31 AM As a new apprentice on the Liverpool docks I was a bit of a nuisance as I couldn't decide whether I was more interested in learning the trade I was being taught or the wonderful Jazz I was hearing at The Cavern (those were the days before the place became infested with Beatles) I had had a particularly bad 'concentration day' when an elderly tradesman turned thoughtfully to me and said, "You know - I think on the day you were born they threw the best bit away" Jim Carroll |
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Subject: RE: Great Put-Downs From: Mr Red Date: 02 Jun 17 - 03:34 AM I invariably opine "I am not a musician, I am a drummer" It is usually taken as a self-deprecating put-down. But don't believe all you hear! |
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Subject: RE: Great Put-Downs From: daithi Date: 02 Jun 17 - 04:54 AM Was it Dr. Johnson who,when sent a manuscript to appraise by another, aspiring writer, said: Your book is both good and original; however that part which was good was not original, and that which was original, was not good". |
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Subject: RE: Great Put-Downs From: Steve Shaw Date: 02 Jun 17 - 05:13 AM That's like that old one, Jim - "When they circumcised you they threw the wrong bit away." |
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Subject: RE: Great Put-Downs From: GUEST,Desi C Date: 02 Jun 17 - 06:43 AM One I've used a few times but not original "sit down and plug your chair in" The old time comic Max Wall in a comeback concert in the early 60's after he'd been part of a Newspaper scandal re his marriage break up. When heckled by an audience member, he responded with his famous glare "Sit down son, I've been heckled by professionals" |
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Subject: RE: Great Put-Downs From: Jim Carroll Date: 02 Jun 17 - 07:43 AM They're all coming back now – I hate these threads! A few of the most devastating put downs by the more mature young Liverpool women to younger boys. "Come back when you've got hairs on it" Or "What do you mean, that's all?" Or "Put it under the pillow; I'll smoke it in the morning" Or "Your big brother told me you might be callin' 'round" The heady days of youth eh? Jim Carroll |
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Subject: RE: Great Put-Downs From: Jim Carroll Date: 02 Jun 17 - 11:31 AM Liverpool schoolteacher Peter Moloney made a brief name for himself in the 1960s by recording stories from his kids and broadcasting them He tells of two scuffy Scouse kids waking along the road alongside Childwall Abbey one dinnertime when they saw a very elderly be-robed and long-bearded monk walking towards them. One of them asks, "Ay father, woz yous in the Ark?" Outraged, the monk replied, "Of course I wasn't, you stupid boy". "Why wern't yous drowned then?" Jim Carroll |
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Subject: RE: Great Put-Downs From: GUEST,Mike Yates Date: 03 Jun 17 - 10:41 AM daithi's Dr Johnson put down reminds me that George Bernard Shaw kept a stack of printed postcards, which he sent to budding authors. The postcards said: Thank you for your unsolicited manuscript. I shall waste no time in reading it. GBS. |
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Subject: RE: Great Put-Downs From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity Date: 03 Jun 17 - 02:11 PM Groucho Marx, who bhosted an early T.V. show called, 'Who Do You Trust', in which married couples would come on and answer questions, or defer to the other to make the right answer. One such contestant couple came on, and the man said to Grouch, "My wife has been waiting for years to be on you show, to be insulted by you."...To which Groucho reared back his head, looked her up and down, then him..then her again, then said to the man, "Well after looking at your wife, for just a moment, I'm surprised, you couldn't think of your own insults!" Got 'em both!! GfS |
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Subject: RE: Great Put-Downs From: gillymor Date: 03 Jun 17 - 02:13 PM Wynton Marsalis told of a saxophonist bandmate who said to him "I'm afraid I might sound too much like Coltrane" to which he replied "That's something you ain't never gonna have to worry about." |
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Subject: RE: Great Put-Downs From: Big Al Whittle Date: 03 Jun 17 - 05:15 PM unnamed sax player: i can never work out how to finish my solo... Miles Davis: you take the fucking thing out of your mouth... |
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Subject: RE: Great Put-Downs From: Joe_F Date: 03 Jun 17 - 06:05 PM A certain professor of psychology was annoyed because the same female student, time after time, sat in the front row and knitted while he lectured. Thinking it undignified to order her about, he slipped into his lecture a casual remark that knitting was a substitute for masturbation. She raised her hand and said "Professor ----, when I masturbate, I masturbate, and when I knit, I knit." (I used to hear this told about a particular psychologist, but since he publicly denied it, I am letting him rest in peace.) |
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Subject: RE: Great Put-Downs From: gillymor Date: 03 Jun 17 - 07:29 PM Artie Shaw supposedly said of Benny Goodman, his arch-rival, "he couldn't improvise a belch after a Hungarian dinner" which he probably copped from Fred Allen who said it of Jack Benny's ad-libbing skill. |
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Subject: RE: Great Put-Downs From: robomatic Date: 04 Jun 17 - 11:24 AM I heard this live off the radio from Boston, about a sitting President, strangely not the one we got now: "President __________ couldn't pour piss out of a boot if the instructions were on the heel!" It's an old U.S. Army line, but apt and succinct. When I heard it broadcast off a popular rock station, it was new to me. |
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Subject: RE: Great Put-Downs From: kendall Date: 04 Jun 17 - 08:24 PM I did a set at a bluegrass festival for a friend. He asked me to sing a particular song about a dog. There was a nit wit walking back and forth in front of the audience saying, "I can spell dog, "DOG"..I can also spell cat, "CAT". then he realized that I was giving him "the look". he looked up at me with a sheepish smirk on his puss, and when I said to him, "It's ok, keep going, I can't wait 'til you get to chrysanthemum." he headed for the exit to a great clapping. He never came back. In Scotland, a couple of the audience asked if they might be permitted to heckle me. Never had that before, or after. One did ask a funny question. An old friend of mine had a daughter who didn't take prisoners. She worked in this joint, and some pie eyed sot said to her, "I'd like to get into your pants." She replied, "What for, there is already one ass hole in them." I tell this one in the first person because it scans better. I was served by a beautiful waitress, and I asked her, "Where were you when I was single and available"? She said, "I wasn't born yet." |
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Subject: RE: Great Put-Downs From: robomatic Date: 04 Jun 17 - 09:42 PM Rossini: "Mr. Wagner has beautiful moments but bad quarters of an hour." |
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Subject: RE: Great Put-Downs From: meself Date: 04 Jun 17 - 11:58 PM George Bernard Shaw: "Wagner's music is better than it sounds." |
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Subject: RE: Great Put-Downs From: GUEST Date: 05 Jun 17 - 02:39 AM I've used it, but I can't remember whence it came. To a heckler: "Why Frank, all this time I thought you were a wit, and then I find that I'm only half right!" Fortunately he was a friend, and almost choked laughing. |
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Subject: RE: Great Put-Downs From: Paul Reade Date: 12 Jun 17 - 09:26 AM Dennis Skinner MP: "Half the Tory party are crooks" Mr Speaker: "Withdraw that remark" Dennis Skinner MP: "Sorry - Half the Tory party are not crooks!" |
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Subject: RE: Great Put-Downs From: Joe_F Date: 12 Jun 17 - 06:10 PM That recalls the story of the first mate who wrote in the ship's log, "The captain was drunk last night." When the captain made it clear that that would not do, the mate changed "drunk" to "sober". |
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Subject: RE: Great Put-Downs From: Jack Campin Date: 12 Jun 17 - 08:51 PM I think this has been the best putdown of the latest UK election, from a police community account on Twitter after the count showed how many seats she'd lost:
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