Play on words in songs

Subject: Play on words in songs
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 19 Jan 20 - 06:11 AM

I looked for you in DFW but you must have been in Love!!

Subject: RE: Play on words in songs
From: Mr Red
Date: 19 Jan 20 - 06:45 AM

how about a play on words in a song in a play?

where the bee sucks, there suck I

flowers and all that - oooer missus! Naughty Shakespeare!

Subject: RE: Play on words in songs
From: GUEST,JohnH
Date: 19 Jan 20 - 07:39 AM

She sat down for to write this song
She wrote it wide and she wrote it long
At every line she shed a tear
Saying at the bottom I have lost my dear.

Subject: RE: Play on words in songs
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 19 Jan 20 - 09:03 AM

I looked for you in DFW ......

What is DFW?


DC

Subject: RE: Play on words in songs
From: BobL
Date: 19 Jan 20 - 12:27 PM

As I was a-walking down by the High Street,
I saw a poor chap with no shoes to his feet.
So being well off, having brass for to spare
I popped into a fruit shop and bought him a pear.

Subject: RE: Play on words in songs
From: Karen Impola
Date: 19 Jan 20 - 02:22 PM

Doug Chadwick - DFW is short for "Dallas/Fort Worth" - two neighboring cities in Texas. The small town of Love, Texas, is about 150 miles east of there. I assume that's what the play on words is.

There's also the town of Harmony, Minnesota. I can't remember who it was, but I heard a song about setting up housekeeping with one's sweetheart "just a little out of Harmony", or words to that effect.

Subject: RE: Play on words in songs
From: leeneia
Date: 19 Jan 20 - 02:24 PM

Hi, Doug. DFW is the Dallas-Fort Worth (Texas) airport. The smaller, older field there is named Love Something. I don't know the official name; it's usually just called Dallas Love.
===================
There's a pop song that starts

    When I was a boy, the devil came to me
    and he said "Who do, who do you think you're fooling?"

This was clever, as Who do sounded like hoodoo. But the song went downhill from there, as far as I was concerned, and was uninteresting.

Subject: RE: Play on words in songs
From: Karen Impola
Date: 19 Jan 20 - 02:36 PM

Thanks, leeneia. Your knowledge of DFW, Texas, is more complete than mine. I just theorized that Love must be the name of a town, and googled it.

The song with "Who do, who do you think you're fooling" is Paul Simon's "Love Me Like A Rock", if anyone's interested.

Subject: RE: Play on words in songs
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 19 Jan 20 - 02:41 PM

Thanks Karen and leeneia. I thought it was either a supermarket or do-it-yourself chain.

DC

Subject: RE: Play on words in songs
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 19 Jan 20 - 03:23 PM

Here you go!!

Hank Wangford - DFW!!!

Subject: RE: Play on words in songs
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 19 Jan 20 - 03:24 PM

If I say you had a beautiful body would you hold it against me!

If my heart had a window could you see through the pain?

Subject: RE: Play on words in songs
From: The Sandman
Date: 19 Jan 20 - 04:16 PM

If I say you have 3 legs would you hold them against me
MUCKING ABOUT THE GARDEN

(Q Cumber - Probably Leslie Sarony)


As recorded by:
Jack Hylton & His Orchestra
V. Leslie Sarony
Recorded 29th August 1929



We're a happy family; I'd like you all to know.
We live with Uncle Joe
In a little bungalow.
It has got a garden and it keeps him on the go.
When a friend says, "Where's your uncle?" we just answer, "Oh,
He's mucking about the garden, always on the go."
Seeds begin to show.
Weeds begin to grow.
Mucking about the garden, dear old Uncle Joe
Works for hours
Among the flowers
And then begins to grow
Everything is lovely-uvely everywhere, everywhere.
Morning noon and night he's on the go.
Oh!
Mucking about the garden, dear old Uncle Joe
Sings, "Ripe tomatoes, apples or plums,"
Watching his onion grow.

(Musical Break)

On useful garden hints and knowledge
I will now expound
Always plant rice pudding seeds
A mile beneath the ground
Go and get your toasting fork
You find there’s lots of jobs on
And don’t forget that water cress
Are radishes with knobs on
And there’s one thing more
I’d lie to say while on this tack
If your rhubarb’s far too forward
Simply bend it bac

Subject: RE: Play on words in songs
From: The Sandman
Date: 19 Jan 20 - 04:18 PM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mvf32MGLWys

Subject: RE: Play on words in songs
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 19 Jan 20 - 05:04 PM

On the banks of red roses, my love and I sat down. I took out my fiddle (charm box or tuner) to play my love a tune. In the middle of the tune, she sighed and she said, 'Johnny lovely Johnny never leave me.............. She was obviously quite satisfied by whatever he took out........

Subject: RE: Play on words in songs
From: meself
Date: 19 Jan 20 - 07:11 PM

I always preferred to think of that one as an innocent song about a fiddler and a girl who liked fiddle music. Hopeless romantic that I am ... !

Subject: RE: Play on words in songs
From: oldhippie
Date: 20 Jan 20 - 05:44 PM

I LOBSTER BUT NEVER FLOUNDER

I was a cook
And she was a waitress
Down at the Salty Sam Seafood Café
And somewhere 'tween the clam juice and the seaweed salad
Some little shrimp just lured her away

[Chorus]
Oh, I lobster and never flounder
He wrapped his line around her
And they drove off in his carp
Oh, I lobster and never flounder
I octopus his face in
Eel only break her heart

[Verse 2]
I said, "Just squid and leave me
For that piano tuna
If you want to trout something new"
She was the bass I ever had
Now my life has no porpoise
Oh, my cod, I love her, yes, I do

[Chorus]
Oh, I lobster and never flounder
He wrapped his line around her
And they drove off in his carp
Oh, I lobster and never flounder
I octopus his face in
Eel only break her heart


[Outro]
"Boy, I swordfish she'd come back to me,
I'd shore her a whale of a time"
"Now you know she'd just pull that 'Not tonight, I've got a haddock' routine"
"You're probably right, but y'know, I've kelp her picture in my walleye just for the halibut
I wonder if she's still got mine in her perch"
"Did you, did you say 'perch'"
"Yeah, I'm afraid so"
"That's good, for a moment there, I thought I was losing my
Herring"
"Well, we bass squid all this seahorsing around before these people out here go into a state of shark"
"Yeah, if we get out of here alive, it's going to be a mackerel" "Frankly scallop I don't give a clam"

Subject: RE: Play on words in songs
From: Karen Impola
Date: 20 Jan 20 - 09:37 PM

Breakfast Blues (Ronnie Levine)

You give me hard eggs in the morning,
Cheese omelet you go.
Yeah, you give me hard eggs in the morning,
Cheese omelet you go.
You just hot buttered grits your teeth and bear it girl,
I doughnut love you no more.
(Now don't get that glazed look on your face!)
Ham bacon you to leave me,
I never sausage misery.
Ham bacon you to leave me, darlin',
I never sausage misery.
Well, you treated me so ungrapefruitly,
You gave me a raisin to be free.
Well, what do you Eggs Benedict me to do now?
I've got muffin else to say.
Yeah, what do you Eggs Benedict me to do now?
I've got muffin else to say.
Yeah, you left such a waffle toast in my mouth,
You biscuit out of town today.
(You know I ain't gonna keep those home fries burning for you.)
You give me hard eggs in the morning,
Cheese omelet you go.
You give me hard eggs in the morning,
Cheese omelet you go.
You just hot buttered grits your teeth and bear it girl,
I ain't gonna quiche you any more
(Jelly roll it again?)

Subject: RE: Play on words in songs
From: Karen Impola
Date: 20 Jan 20 - 09:40 PM

Whoops, I see that one is already in the Mudcat archives, but without an author.

Also see "Zoo Blues" by Robin Williamson et. al.

Subject: RE: Play on words in songs
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 23 Jan 20 - 04:59 PM

I seen a peanut stand, heard a rubber band
I seen a needle that winked its eye
But I be done seen 'bout ev'rything
When I see a elephant fly

I seen a front porch swing, heard a diamond ring
I seen a polka-dot railroad tie
But I be done seen 'bout ev'rything
When I see a elephant fly

I saw a clothes horse rear up and buck
And they tell me that a man made a vegetable truck
I didn't see that, I only heard
Just to be sociable, I'll take your word

I heard a fireside chat, I saw a baseball bat
And I just laughed till I thought I'd die
But I be done seen 'bout ev'rything
When I see a elephant fly

Songwriters: Ned Washington / Oliver Wallace

Subject: RE: Play on words in songs
From: The Doctor
Date: 24 Jan 20 - 05:27 AM

One I always remember, or at least the last verse, is Thomas Hood's Faithless Sally Brown.

His death, which happened in his berth,              
At forty-odd befell;        
They went and told the sexton, and        
The sexton tolled the bell.

The rest is worth reading too.

Subject: RE: Play on words in songs
From: Jim McLean
Date: 24 Jan 20 - 02:29 PM

Jerusalem...... You're loosin' 'em, pick up your trousers high.
Whose are they, whose are they, my God what a terrible size
Etcetera

Subject: RE: Play on words in songs
From: ketchdana
Date: 25 Jan 20 - 02:05 AM

In John F Weldon's "The Girl in the Very Tight Hat", the lyric goes

... I like a girl in a very tight hat. (A very tight what?) No, a very tight hat. ...

It took a while (years really) to realize the answer to the question was not "hat",
but "No".

www.weldonalley.ca/songs/titehat.mp3
(There is a mudcat thread (#73389) about the song, but not the question.)

... Bob