Body bag songs

Subject: Body bag songs
From: Jack Campin
Date: 12 Feb 19 - 07:24 AM

In light of the news that the NHS is stockpiling body bags to deal with the consequences of Brexit:

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/nhs-stockpiling-body-bags-cope-13985984

...what songs about them do people know? There are a few from the American side in the Vietnam War, but this is the only one I know about body-bagging on a mass scale:

Fifteen Million Plastic Bags (Adrian Mitchell)

I was walking in a government warehouse
Where the daylight never goes
When I saw fifteen million plastic bags
Hanging in a thousand rows.

   Five million were six feet long
   Five million were five foot five
   Five million were stamped with Mickey Mouse
   And they came in a smaller size.

Were they for guns or uniforms
Or a kinky kind of party game?
Then I saw each bag had a number
And every bag bore a name.

   Five million were six feet long
   Five million were five foot five
   Five million were stamped with Mickey Mouse
   And they came in a smaller size.

So I've taken my bag from the hanger
And I've pulled it over my head
And I'll wait for the priest to zip it
So the radiation won't spread.

   Five million were six feet long
   Five million were five foot five
   Five million were stamped with Mickey Mouse
   And they came in a smaller size.

(tune suggested by Mitchell: St James Infirmary, though the way I know it is a bit folk-processed).

Subject: RE: Body bag songs
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 12 Feb 19 - 09:53 AM

I remember Sam Sherry singing this old fave:

Body in the Bag
(Charles O'Hegarty)

Our old cat died last night
Me wife says to bury it out of sight
But we didn't have a garden;
We was livin' in a flat
So what was I to do with the body of a cat,
Then a big brown paper bag I spied
I put our old dead kittycat inside.
And now I'm

Off down the street with the body in the bag,
The body in the bag, ta ra ra.

I went off down the street to have a whisky neat
And carefully laid my dead cat underneath my seat.
Then I got down on my hands and knees;
Went halfway through the town,
When the barman stops me,
``Here's your parcel Mr. Brown,'
So I had to thank the silly fool
And give him half a crown
For bringing me the body in the bag.

I threw it in the river but the hero of a play,
Well he jumped right in after,
Shouting, ``Hip hip hip, hooray!'
Then he crawled out on the bank
And he stood there in a pool.
He said, ``I'm really rather wet
And also rather cool.'
So I had to take me trousers off
And give 'em to the fool
For bringing me the body in the bag.

Well, I crept off down the street as quiet as a mouse
An' carefully laid me burden on
The doorstep of a house,
When the door it was flung open
And a lady dressed in blue
said, ``Pardonnez-moi monsieur,
But do you want a room?'
I said, ``Good heavens no, an' I've got
Something else to do!'
And skeddaddled with the body in the bag.

I crept into a garden, feeling very brave,
And with a pick and shovel I commenced to dig a grave,
But I got an awful shock when a voice behind me said,
``You're digging my potatoes!'
Oh, you could've shot me dead.
But there I was a-diggin' in his cauliflower bed
So I hit him with the body in the bag.

All at once from in the bag
There came a plaintive meow
Say Puss, ``I'm dead no longer,
You needn't bother now.
You've often heard it said
That a cat has got nine lives,
Well, I'm a married Tabby,
One of Tommy's wives
And our families they usually come
In threes, and fours, and fives...'
But there were seven little bodies in the bag!

Subject: RE: Body bag songs
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 12 Feb 19 - 10:21 AM

On a more serious note, the only other thing I can think of offhand is the superb Tom Waits song Hell Broke Luce, which mentions them in a verse:

Nimrod Bodfish have you any wool
Get me another body bag, the body bag’s full
My face was scorched, scorched
I miss my home I miss my porch, porch
Left, right, left

And this bit is pretty timely (is it ever not timely?)

How is it that the only ones responsible for this mess
Got their sorry asses stapled to a goddamn desk
Hell broke luce
Hell broke luce
Left, right, left

Subject: RE: Body bag songs
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 12 Feb 19 - 11:08 AM

There's one that I sing, to the tune of Botany bay. Can't be arsed to write down the words at the moment as I'm knackered by gardening duties.

Subject: RE: Body bag songs
From: oldhippie
Date: 12 Feb 19 - 01:56 PM

In the DT, related - "Send Me To Glory In A Glad Bag"