Lyr Req: Charlotte the Harlot

Subject: Charlotte the Harlot
From: GUEST,Z-Girl
Date: 04 Feb 00 - 01:00 PM

I am looking for a Renaissance England version of "Charlotte the Harlot".

Please help.

Subject: RE: Charlotte the Harlot
From: Amos
Date: 04 Feb 00 - 01:06 PM

I only know two references to this fine lady.

One describes her as "...the girl we adore, the pride of the prairies, the cow-puncher's whore". Which is far from Elizabethan.

The other attributes the name to the daughter of the skipper on the good ship Venus, and adds,

"At night her thighs were lily white,
By morning they were scarlet."

Sorry neither of these really answers your question but I couldn't turn down the opportunity to color the thread!

A

Subject: RE: Charlotte the Harlot
From: MMario
Date: 04 Feb 00 - 01:10 PM

put "harlot" in the search box above, and take your pick of the "kaffozalumn" variations that come up.

Subject: RE: Charlotte the Harlot
From: Amos
Date: 04 Feb 00 - 01:29 PM

Kafoozalum, kafoozalum, the harlot of Jerusalem,
Ain't Renaissance, so for this dance
It's hardly any usalum!

A

Subject: RE: Charlotte the Harlot
From: MMario
Date: 04 Feb 00 - 01:42 PM

no - but I HAVE heard variations of it sung it ren-faire and at SCA events, so ....

and Kafoozalum can be done to not have any anachronistic references....

Subject: RE: Charlotte the Harlot
From: Amos
Date: 04 Feb 00 - 01:47 PM

I defer to your wisdom, revered MM. I was just throwing syllables around. Bad habit of mine.

A

Subject: RE: Charlotte the Harlot
From: Hotspur
Date: 04 Feb 00 - 10:17 PM

Didn't Iron Maiden cover that song?

Subject: RE: Charlotte the Harlot
From: Abby Sale
Date: 05 Feb 00 - 09:28 PM

This is a favorite of mine. The bittersweet ending always brings a small tear to my eye. A "funeral procession forty miles long..." She must have been deeply & extensively loved.

Ed Cray treats it at some length but doesn't find origins. This type of song could be very old. Victorian, anyway, if not Elizabethan. Maybe requester was thinking of it's tune, "Villikins and His Dinah," one of the oldest and most-used tunes in all Flkdom.

Subject: RE: Charlotte the Harlot
From: Susan of DT
Date: 05 Feb 00 - 09:33 PM

Dick says look up shuttlecock

Subject: RE: Charlotte the Harlot
From: Amos
Date: 06 Feb 00 - 06:58 PM

Shuttlecock, in the usual sense, is the strange-shaped object covered with feathers used in badminton. Now what Dick has in mind has got to be a more arcane and colloquial sense of the word!

A

Subject: RE: Charlotte the Harlot
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 07 Feb 00 - 12:34 AM

Don't tell me what I have on my mind! Try the search for shuttlecock in DigiTrad and see what I'm suggesting.

Subject: RE: Charlotte the Harlot
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 07 Feb 00 - 01:55 AM

Well, Amos...so much for your career as a Mentalist.:0)

Subject: RE: Charlotte the Harlot
From: Amos
Date: 07 Feb 00 - 10:04 AM

Well, duly chastised, I took Dick's advice and looked up shuttlecock in the DT instead of the OED.

Well, folks, I gotta say Dick is on the money. 'Nuff said. You'll have to see for yourself. But two tumblers and a ferret!! Wow.

A

Subject: RE: Charlotte the Harlot
From: Bill D
Date: 07 Feb 00 - 10:54 AM

I have the Cray book and also the Best of Dalliance records, but NOTHING matches the version of Charlotte I heard at a party some 30 years ago...a guy came in and sang it sort of like in Cray, but much longer and more elaborate..I didn't have the sense to grab him and wring the verses out of him, and never saw him again...*sigh*...Oppornockity only tunes once, they say,,,

Subject: RE: Charlotte the Harlot
From: Bill D
Date: 07 Feb 00 - 10:58 AM

(BTW...the version in the database is 'slightly' tamer than the one in Cray.)...

Subject: RE: Charlotte the Harlot
From: Grab
Date: 08 Feb 00 - 08:27 AM

Definitely an Iron Maiden song with that name - see

http://www.truemetal.org/ironmaiden/lyrics/m_lyrics1.html#track8

(sorry, I don't do blue clicky things). Whether that's what you want, I don't know.

Grab.

Subject: RE: Kafoozalum???
From: GUEST,Arthur K
Date: 22 Apr 00 - 09:11 AM

Does anybody have the words to the old English rowing/rugby club version of Kafoozalum we used to sing back in the fifties. Seem to remember it started:

" As I was walkin' down the street, down the street, down the street, As I was walking down the street, I bumped into Kafoozalum"

Chorus was:

"Hi Ho Kafoozalum, Kafoozalum, Kafoozalum; Hi Ho kafoozalum, the harlot of Jersualum"

The some other verses about : "cocked her leg right over me", etc. etc.

Have a vague recollection that the tune (London Bridge) was used as a Morris dance at one time?

Anybody help with the verses?

Subject: RE: Charlotte the Harlot
From: roopoo
Date: 23 Apr 00 - 03:07 AM

Oh memories! The first time I ever got totally p*ssed was at Nottingham Uni in 1970 when I was the only girl with a gang of engineering undergrads (one now my husband) and we grabbed the mike when the turn went for a break, and sang Kafoozalum. I dug out my copy of "More Rugby Songs" but unfortunately the words will be found in "'Why Was He Born So Beautiful' and Other Rugby Songs", originally published by Sphere in the late 60s, and I no longer have my copy.

I remember the chorus as: "Hey, hey Kafoozalum, Kafoozalum, Kafoozalum; The prostitute of ill-repute, the Harlot of Jerusalem". With the m-m-m-m on the last Kafoozalum sort of hummed for a few notes at the end each time for a couple of notes.

The tune we sang to was the one under the same name (Kafoozalum) which is used in English Folk Dance. A sort of a jig, if I am not mistaken.

mouldy

Subject: RE: Charlotte the Harlot
From: Terry K
Date: 23 Apr 00 - 03:28 AM

Used to be a great favourite at Middlesbrough (and probably every other) Rugby Club.

In days of old there lived a maid
A mistress truly of her trade
Of high repute, a prostitute
A harlot of Jerusalem

Hi Ho Cathusalem, Cathusalem etc. (note that only the classical spelling was good enough for the Boro!!)

There was a student of the wall
And though he only had one ball
It was the largest of them all
That hung there in Jerusalem

Now this tart she knew her art
She let him loose a mighty fart
That blew him like a fucking dart
O'er the walls of Jerusalem

Can't remember any more but this may jog someone else's memory.

HTML line breaks added. --JoeClone, 25-Aug-02.

Subject: RE: Charlotte the Harlot
From: GUEST,Parthenon
Date: 23 Apr 00 - 07:17 AM

Methinks there is some confusion here!

"Charlotte the Harlot" and "The Harlot of Jerusalem" are not the same lady.

In my student and rugby playing days I came across both ditties. "The Harlot of Jerusalem" was the most common by far. Charlotte the Harlot I heard infrequently, but the words were published, as a previous correspondent said, in one of the series of Rugby Songbooks, in the late sixties.

If my beer befuddled memory still works, the first verse of Charlotte goes something like:-

Charlotte the Harlot lay dying
A pisspot supporting her head
As the blowflies were buzzing around her
She leaned on her left tit and said-

I've been had by the army and navy
By a bullfighting toreador
By *****'s and dagoes and drongoes
But never by maggots before.

Not the song to sing over your Sunday brunch!

Subject: RE: Charlotte the Harlot
From: Abby Sale
Date: 23 Apr 00 - 11:19 AM

GUEST,Parthenon: Seems there are more "Charlotte"s after all. Yours is "Charlotte the Harlot Lay Dying" which I don't sing. I sing basically the one in DT (you can't beat the tune, Vilikins, for fine bathos) but I got the words from Silverman's Dirty Song Book. The DT version is slightly too tame for my taste.

Subject: RE: Charlotte the Harlot
From: wildlone
Date: 23 Apr 00 - 01:31 PM

for some smutty songs.
http://members.aol.com/llewtrah/index.htm

for SCA songs and links
http://www.dnaco.net/~mobrien/filk/scalink.html

Subject: RE: Charlotte the Harlot
From: GUEST
Date: 09 Jan 05 - 12:58 AM

Aussie version:

Charlotte the harlot lay dying,
A pisspot supporting her head.
She rolled on her left tit a-dying.
She rolled on her left tit and said,
"I've been fucked by the Japs and the Germans.
I've been raped by the Arabs and Jews.
Now I come back to sunny Australia
To be fucked by three bastards like you."

Subject: RE: Charlotte the Harlot
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 09 Jan 05 - 01:51 AM

G'day ...

GUEST's version (VERSION ... ?) is clearly related to what I learned around Sydney in the late 1950s:

Charlotte the harlot lay dying,
A pisspot supporting her head.
Around her three poofters* were lying, as she
Rolled on her left tit and said:

"I've been fucked by the League of all Nations,
The Irish, the Scotch and Jew -
And now I have come to Australia,
To be fucked by three bastards like you!".

* As kids we didn't quibble about this inconsistency!

However, the local tune of choice seems to have been Botany Bay, rather than Villikins. Possibly starts out post WW I (League of Nations, rather than United Nations) ... but, by no stretch of the imagination, Renaissance!

Regards,

Bob Bolton

Subject: RE: Charlotte the Harlot
From: GUEST,Barrie Roberts
Date: 09 Jan 05 - 02:15 PM

Haven't we got 3 songs here? 'Charlotte the Harlot', 'The Death of C the H' and 'Kafoozelum'?
'Kafoozelum', for those who care, was a clean, silly, music-hall song until the British Army got its hands on it. Rudyard Kipling, no less, asserted that the poor girl's downfall occurred in S.Africa during the 2nd Boer War.
It has been said that Jack the Ripper was the poet J.K.Stephens and that his pattern of killing can be related to the events in the obscene version of 'Kafoozelum'. He probably was, but they can't.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Charlotte the Harlot
From: GUEST,GUEST Martin Fido
Date: 14 Sep 05 - 07:00 AM

Jack the Ripper was NOT J.K.Stephen!
But the words to Kafoozelum I know are

In days of old there lived a jade
Of low repute, a prostitute,
Who carried on a roaring trade
All about Jerusalem.

Hi-si Kafoozelum,
Kafoozelum, Kafoozelum!
Hi=si Kafoozelum,
The harlot of Jerusalem.

From Jericho there came by night
A crafty shite, an Israelite,
Who was resolved with all his might
To shag the fair Kafoozelum

Kafoozelum, the crafty tart
She crossed her legs and blew a fart
And off he floated, like a dart,
High above Jerusalem.

But as he floated merrily,
Flying high and wide and free
He caught his bollocks on a tree
That grows above Jerusalem.

What most interests me about it is that Kipling knew it, and quotes the narrator in one of his short stories as singing "Hi-si Kafoozelum!" at the end of an evening with Oxford undergraduates.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Charlotte the Harlot
From: Bob the Postman
Date: 14 Sep 05 - 08:21 AM

I learned the words to "Charlotte the Harlot" from an inscription on the wall of a forest service hut in the mountains near Arthur's Pass, New Zealand, in 1976. Also, a very funny and deeply offensively filthy poem which begins "Old Lil was the best the west could produce". The obvious tune for Charlotte is that of Tarpaulin Jacket, an Aussie version of which begins "A strapping young stockman lay dying".

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Charlotte the Harlot
From: Abby Sale
Date: 14 Sep 05 - 08:51 AM

I finally have "Charlotte the Harlot Lay Dying" on a record (on which it's called "Charlotte the Harlot," just to keep us confusd.) It's on the superb Salty Dick's Uncensored Sailor Songs (available at Camsco & Immortalia) which is not only excellently sung but the CD for the first time gives good text & background on a bunch of these songs.

It's Australian, of course, and seems to have no connection at all with "Charlotte the Harlot" except the title & being a tragic song of her death. Enough new songs (and Art in general) are created with no more reliance on an old idea that the two songs could derive one from the other.

Here are "Richard Docker's" words - a few extra over those posted.

Charlotte the Harlot lay dying, a pisspot supporting her head,
Surrounded by six horny sailors, she rolled on her left tit and said,

"I've been fucked by the Pohmmies and Irish, I've been fucked by the
                            Yanks and the Jews,
Now I've come over here to Australia to be fucked by bastards like you.

So out with your dirty old organs, and gimme the juice of your nuts.
Out with your dirty old organs and I'll tattoo my name on your guts."

(Notice that she has not been fucked by cowboys.)

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Charlotte the Harlot
From: Leadfingers
Date: 14 Sep 05 - 10:37 AM

Charlotte the starlet , The girl I adore ??

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Charlotte the Harlot
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 14 Sep 05 - 11:48 PM

G'day Abbey,

What's the tune on the Salty Dick's Uncensored Sailor Songs:

... one of the Tarpaulin Jacket family (as Bob the Postman suggests),

... (just possibly ... ) Botany Bay as I learned some very similar (and "Australianised") words to - about 45 years ago or

... something different again?

Regards,

Bob

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Charlotte the Harlot
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 15 Sep 05 - 12:09 AM

"Sweet Betsy from Pike" is the usual tune for Charlotte heard in western states.
I would like to find more verses to this version:

Way down in old Sonora where the pot grows tall,
Vultures fly the skies, and the rattlesnakes crawl.

Scorpions creep over dead men's bones,
And coyotes yelp in blood-curdling tones.

It was in this hot, dry desert waste
That I first came face to face

With the queen of all the whores,
Senorita Bonita, the Mexican Rose.

The above fragment from Ed Cray, "The Erotic Muse," p. 164; taken from "The Life, the Lore and Poetry of the Black Hunter," Wepman et al.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Charlotte the Harlot
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 15 Sep 05 - 12:26 AM

Thank you Mr. Sale - never heard those verses before - will add them to my personal collection.

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

Glad to have you around again - you have added a bit of stability to keel of this HMS Digital Ship.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Charlotte the Harlot
From: JennieG
Date: 15 Sep 05 - 04:43 AM

I can remember hearing, in the mid-to-late 60s, the first verse of "Charlotte the Harlot" - it was sung by my ex-husband. He used the tune "The Dying Stockman". He wouldn't sing any more than the first verse (I don't know if he knew any more verses anyway!) because he considered it too rude for my delicate and tender ears.

Cheers
JennieG

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Charlotte the Harlot
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 15 Sep 05 - 07:09 AM

G'day Jennie,

It seems that the logical tune around here (or Tamworth, in your case at that time) would be The Dying Stockman - or some other cousin from the Tarpaulin Jacket family.

It surprises me (at least in retrospect) that the version I heard had shifted allegiance to Botany Bay!

Regards,

Bob

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Charlotte the Harlot
From: Lighter
Date: 15 Sep 05 - 10:40 AM

Q, that's "Black Hustler."

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Charlotte the Harlot
From: EBarnacle
Date: 15 Sep 05 - 11:09 AM

Kafoozalum can be found in its bowdlerized entirity in OPscar Brand's "Bawdy Songs and Backroom Ballads."

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Charlotte the Harlot
From: Abby Sale
Date: 15 Sep 05 - 11:57 AM

Bob: Hi, yerself. "My Bonnie (or Barnie, if you prefer) Lies Over the Ocean" without any chorus. I don't know if "Tarpaulin Jacket" is the same or not. It's close, anyway, but the "Docker" tune is exactly "Bonnie Lies" in its usuality.

JennieG: I trust your current and, if any, future husbands have more respect for your ears. Good riddance to the ex-, I say.

EBarnacle: Right or wrong, I've found Brand an excellent source of tunes but try to avoid picking up any of his words. I've found that if I happen to get anyone's bowdlerized words stuck in my head it's very hard for me to upgrade them at a later time.

I sing several songs (not from Brand) for which I have to announce: "This is a very bawdy song but unfortunately, I only know "parlor" verses. The "Ram of Derby" for one.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Charlotte the Harlot
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 15 Sep 05 - 07:29 PM

G'day Abby,

Thanks! That's interesting ... the tune of My Bonny Lies Over the Ocean is not one that I've heard attached to the venial Charlotte's verses.

Tarpaulin Jacket is ancestor to local (Aussie) standards like The Dying Stockman ... and a string of "Dying ..." persons of increasingly dubious character ... culminating in a selected few of our Federal politicians!

Regards,

Bob

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Charlotte the Harlot
From: GUEST,actionmanmelb
Date: 20 Oct 08 - 10:24 PM

Here is another slightly different aussie version I learnt as a schoolboy 50 years ago.

Charlotte the Harlot lay dying, a pisspot supporting her head,
Three bastards lay round her crying so she rolled on her left tit
and said,

"I've been fucked by the Pohmmies and Irish, I've been fucked by the
Arabs and the Jews,
Now I've come to the shores of Australia to be fucked up by bastards like youse.

So roll down your greasy old foreskins, and give me the juice of your nuts.
So we rolled down our greasy old foreskins and whitewashed the walls of her guts.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Charlotte the Harlot
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Jan 11 - 08:00 PM

This is the version they're singing up at Jindabine, its to the tune of Botany Bay:

I've been fucked by the whole british army
the Japs and the Germans and Jews
But I'll always come back to Australia
To be fucked by two red Kangaroos

Singing hey jiggy jiggy
fuck guineapig's arsehole
I'll give you the juice of my nuts
So open your piss-flaps and fuck me
And I'll whitewash the walls of your guts

(there was probably a few more verses).

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Charlotte the Harlot
From: Leadfingers
Date: 08 Jan 11 - 08:35 PM

Charlotte the Starlet , the girl I adore ???

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Charlotte the Harlot
From: Bob the Postman
Date: 09 Jan 11 - 09:16 AM

One of life's great unanswered questions, Leadie. See above 14 Sep 05 - 10:37 AM.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Charlotte the Harlot
From: banjoman
Date: 10 Jan 11 - 07:05 AM

While riding through Texas where the bullshit lies thick
One hand on my saddle one hand on my P***
twas there that I met her the girl I adore
Charlotte the Harlot the cowpuncher's whore

She's easy she's squeezy she's my heart's delight
I F*** her by day and I F*** her by night
And each time I F*** her I give her a quart
And if you don't think thats F****** you F***** well ought

Probably a few more verses if I can get the brain in gear.
Tune is Sweet Betsy from Pike

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Charlotte the Harlot
From: GUEST,Alva
Date: 03 Jul 11 - 04:37 AM

another verse to Cathusalem ...

In days of old there lived a jade
Who used to ply a roaring trade
A prostitute of wide repute
Who lived in old Jerusalem.

... after the student bit ...

She led him to a shady nook
And from his open flies she took
A thing shaped like a shepherd's crook
The pride of all Jerusalem.

...

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Charlotte the Harlot
From: fat B****rd
Date: 03 Jul 11 - 05:43 AM

"One day in the canyon, no pants on her quim
A rattlesnake saw her and flung itself in.
Now Charlotte the Harlot gives cowpokes a fright
The only vagina that rattles and bites"

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Charlotte the Harlot
From: GUEST
Date: 19 Feb 20 - 01:20 AM

Charlotte the Harlot lay dying, a pisspot supporting her head,
Surrounded by six horny sailors, she rolled on her left tit and said,
"I've been fucked by the Pohmmies and Irish, I've been fucked by the Yanks and the Jews,
Now I've come over here to Australia to be fucked by bastards like you.
So out with your dirty old organs, and gimme the juice of your nuts.
Out with your dirty old organs and I'll tattoo my name on your guts."

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Charlotte the Harlot
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 19 Feb 20 - 02:42 AM

This from Ed Cray's ' Bawdy Ballads '

17th century epitaph ' On Aberdeen '

Here lies the body of Elizabeth Charlotte,
Born a virgin, died a harlot,
A virgin still at 17,
A remarkable thing for Aberdeen.

Dave H