Lyr Req: Parody of 'Where the River Shannon Flows'

Subject: Song ID help--Irish? Parody? other?
From: SingsIrish Songs
Date: 30 Mar 00 - 11:32 AM

I received a plea for help, so I am posing the question to you fellow Mudcatters.

The person seeking the song lyrics wrote:

"OK, all I have are a few pieces of lyrics, but this is supposedly an Irish song (maybe more of a "Tin Pan Alley" type Irish song rather than a traditional one...). Anyway, it's something like

"You'll see British politicians and [something something something]
But you'll never see a Chinese laundry where the River Shannon flows" "

Does anyone have any ideas? I checked the following vintage sheet music sites but was unsuccessful: Lester Levy, Library of Congress' Music for a Nation, and Duke Univ's Historic American Sheet Music.

Thanks,

Mary

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Song ID help--Irish? Parody? other?
From: SingsIrish Songs
Date: 30 Mar 00 - 11:34 AM

I was wondering if it could be a "Where the River Shannon Flows" parody.....

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Song ID help--Irish? Parody? other?
From: SDShad
Date: 30 Mar 00 - 11:59 AM

I think SingsIrish is onto something, as the chorus of "WHERE THE RIVER SHANNON FLOWS" (click here) ends with "For there's not a colleen sweeter where the River Shannon flows". I did an Altavista Search for "Chinese Laundry" and "River Shannon" and it yielded no wisdom, just a couple of song or album lists that include "Uncle Josh in a Chinese Laundry" and "Where the River Shannon Flows."

So it sounds kinda obscure, but obscure doesn't always daunt the good crew at Mudcat.

Chris

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Song ID help--Irish? Parody? other?
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 30 Mar 00 - 12:04 PM

When I was young (we're probably talking Jurassic, here) we sang:

The dirty rotten Irish, they never wash their clothes,
'Cause there are no Chinese Laundries where the River Shannon flows.

Clearly a parody

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Song ID help--Irish? Parody? other?
From: Ringer
Date: 30 Mar 00 - 12:39 PM

Clearly

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Song ID help--Irish? Parody? other?
From: SingsIrish Songs
Date: 30 Mar 00 - 04:24 PM

Chris, thanks for your searches...I think this one may take some time...

And Dick, I recall having heard that one you mentioned. Perhaps what the person is after is something like that...

We'll see if anyone else comes up with anything...

Mary

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Song ID help--Irish? Parody? other?
From: SingsIrish Songs
Date: 03 Apr 00 - 02:33 AM

Any other takers before I let this thread "die"?????

Thanks,

Mary

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Song ID help--Irish? Parody? other?
From: Sorcha
Date: 03 Apr 00 - 02:38 AM

Well, the beat almost feels like a parody of the hated "Unicorn Song".......

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Parody of 'Where the River Shannon Flows'
From: GUEST,C. Nunn
Date: 24 Jan 12 - 05:04 PM

I am doing the very same search now... My dad(may he rest in peace) sang a few words to this song once in a while. I always asked him to sing the whole song to me, but he said it wasn't appropriate for a girl to hear! lol!! He was in the Navy on board a sea-plane tender in WWII. So now I am in search if these elusive lyrics... I wonder if anyone who fought in WWII would have written them down somewhere... Maybe we will never know.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Parody of 'Where the River Shannon Flows'
From: GUEST,C. Nunn
Date: 24 Jan 12 - 05:06 PM

I forgot.. The way Dad always sang it was "Oh, there are no Chinese laundries wher the River Shannon flows.... Where the dirty, dirty Irish go to wash their clothes..." That's all he would sing...

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Parody of 'Where the River Shannon Flows'
From: MartinRyan
Date: 24 Jan 12 - 05:42 PM

Several references online nowadays, of which the oldest I see is from "Captain Billy's Whizz bang" of 1922 or so. BUT - none of them quotes more than the two lines we started with, with minor variation. Are we convinced there was more?

Regards

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Parody of 'Where the River Shannon Flows'
From: GUEST
Date: 03 Feb 13 - 09:26 PM

My grandfather sang:

Oh, there are not chinese laundries where the river shannon flows,
For the dirty stinkin' irishmen, they never wash their clothes.
They put them on in springtime, and they've rotted off by fall,
For the dirty stinkin' irishmen, they never wash their clothes.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Parody of 'Where the River Shannon Flows'
From: GUEST,sarex
Date: 07 Apr 13 - 09:32 PM

Oh ye'll find na Chinese laundries where the Shannon River flows
for those dirty rotten Irish, they never wash their clothes
you'll find no end of sewage and dung of every kind
but ye'll na find clean white washing hanging out on any line.

Oh the men are filthy scoundrels and drunk for all their lives
they sell their kids for whiskey then beat up on their wives
they breed with sheep and cattle and do it all the time
then wash their filthy privates off in pails of turpentine.

(more to follow)

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Parody of 'Where the River Shannon Flows'
From: GUEST
Date: 17 Mar 14 - 05:37 PM

My father, too, would sing just two lines of this, and I've been trying to figure out it's origin. He was an Army man, so maybe this was some sort of crass joke men in the military would pass around? He was in the Army in the 50s.

The way I heard it was:

"Oh there are no Chinese laundries where the River Shannon flows...
The Irish are a dirty bunch, they never wash their clothes..."

if there was more, I don't remember. This was not derogatory in our home, btw... my dad's grandparents came from Ireland.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Parody of 'Where the River Shannon Flows'
From: MartinRyan
Date: 17 Mar 14 - 06:15 PM

Keep it coming, please...

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Parody of 'Where the River Shannon Flows'
From: GUEST
Date: 18 Mar 14 - 02:47 PM

prefer the original- if a few more folkies listened and learned from John McCormack folk clubs would be more enjoyable...

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Parody of 'Where the River Shannon Flows'
From: GUEST,mike g
Date: 27 Jul 14 - 01:30 PM

there was also a reference to "whiskey that flowed like buttermilk" would curdle...

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Parody of 'Where the River Shannon Flows'
From: GUEST,mike g
Date: 27 Jul 14 - 01:33 PM

my family was from ireland and sang the song a few times when i was young, mainly to raise the ire of an unsuspecting irisman who didnt realize they were in fact irish.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Parody of 'Where the River Shannon Flows'
From: GUEST,WH
Date: 22 Oct 14 - 10:39 AM

I heard it as two Jewish men talking about where they wanted to be buried. One said in Israel near the wall and the other said in Ireland. When asked by the first man he replys "When the devil comes a lookin to find where I repose, he'll never think of looking where the river Shannon flows.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Parody of 'Where the River Shannon Flows'
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 23 Oct 14 - 11:47 AM

The following song appears at the head of Chapter 30: "Irish Jewry in the 17th and 18th Centuries" in From Strangers to Citizens: The Integration of Immigrant Communities in Britain, Ireland, and Colonial America, 1550-1750 by Randolph Vigne and Charles Littleton (London: Huguenot Soc. of Great Britain and Ireland, 2001), page 276:

(To the tune of "When Irish Eyes Are Smiling")

Three Jews, they were a-talkin'
'Bout the day when they would die,
And where they would be buried
Beneath God's glorious sky.
Lewinsky said "Jerusalem",
"New York" said Rubinstein,
But, when it came to Cohen he said:
"The Irish isles are mine.

"Sure, I long to lay my weary head
Beneath those leafy boughs
In an Irish cemetery
Where the three-leafed shamrock grows,
For the devil he'll be lookin'
For to find me, I suppose,
And he'd never think to look for me
Where the River Shannon flows."

This ditty from the Lower East Side in New York City, composed in 1879*, when the Jews and the Irish were competing for who was at the bottom rung of the social ladder, is false. The first recorded mention of a Jewish presence in Ireland....

[* However, "When Irish Eyes Are Smiling" is copyright 1912, and "Where the River Shannon Flows" in 1905, so there is something wrong here. Maybe it was at first sung to a different tune, or not sung at all; maybe it was just a printed poem.]

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Parody of 'Where the River Shannon Flows'
From: GUEST,Jim NH
Date: 26 Apr 15 - 01:16 PM

"Levinsky chose Jeruslem
New York for Rubenstein
But when it came tp Levy
He said this is where I'll recline:
Where h River Shannon flows
That's where I shall repose......

Note: My mother told me about this.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Parody of 'Where the River Shannon Flows'
From: GUEST,guest, gregory. just back from Doolin
Date: 09 Jun 15 - 02:28 PM

The version of this ditty I knew goes like this:

There were three Hebrews a plannin on the day that they would die
Trying to decide on where their bodies would lie.

Yablonski chose Jerusalem, New York for Rubenstein,
but when it came to Cohen, he said I know the spot for mine.

In an Irish cemetery, is the spot where I'll repose.
With the River Shannon flowing and a shamrock on my nose.

Now, I know the devil 'll be looking to find me I suppose,
but he'll never think of looking where the River Shannon flows.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Parody of 'Where the River Shannon Flows'
From: GUEST
Date: 22 Jan 19 - 11:47 PM

There were three Jews a-thinking Of the place they'd like to die,
but rather undecided of the of the place they'd like to lie...
Albinski chose Jerusalem, America for Finestein,
but when it came to Cohen, he said neither one for I.
Where the river Shannons' flowing by body shall repose,
in an Irish cemetery, shamrock growing on me nose...
The devil will be looking for Cohen I suppose...
But He'll never think of looking, where the river Shannon flows...

Margaret McFadden, my Irish grandmother used to sing me those exact words from her father in Donegal

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Parody of 'Where the River Shannon Flows'
From: beachcomber
Date: 24 Jan 19 - 09:44 AM

This was , quite obviously, one of those racist songs that the Cities of Eastern USA were full of, in the early years of the last century. I suppose that it could be termed a folk song, because the politics of the time saw to it's propagation as well as lots of similar racism.
Of course all that is history now, isn't it ?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Parody of 'Where the River Shannon Flows'
From: GUEST,McMahon
Date: 07 Mar 21 - 10:31 PM

I remember the song being sung by an Uncle. History? I hope not.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Parody of 'Where the River Shannon Flows'
From: GUEST,Guest.Scott
Date: 02 Aug 21 - 07:10 AM

My uncle sang a slightly different version... 'Oh the Irish are a dirty bunch they never wash their cloths, for there are no Chinese laundries where the River Shannon flows.

My Irish ancestors lived along an arc from Boyle to Roosky, Co. Roscommon, Ireland within a few miles of the Shannon river. Have to wonder if a Grandfather taught him the song.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Parody of 'Where the River Shannon Flows'
From: Mark Ross
Date: 02 Aug 21 - 04:25 PM

And then there is Joe Hill's Where the Fraser River Flows.