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Subject: RE: Help: Capital Ship's 'boxing glove'?!?! From: GUEST,leeneia Date: 26 May 10 - 10:58 PM Thanks, Steve. I thought there might be a few more rhymes, but I couldn't think of them. As for turtledoves, I did put 'dove' in the list. Visual rhymes aren't nearly as satisfactory, are they? |
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Subject: RE: Help: Capital Ship's 'boxing glove'?!?! From: Steve Gardham Date: 27 May 10 - 03:18 PM Hence the 'or not!' agreed |
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Subject: RE: Help: Capital Ship's 'boxing glove'?!?! From: DebC Date: 27 May 10 - 05:00 PM The folksinger mentioned by Guest, George above might have been me. I was told that at a folk club a few years ago after I sang the song. Whether this is true or not I have no idea, but it makes for funny stage banter. Deb Cowan |
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Subject: RE: Help: Capital Ship's 'boxing glove'?!?! From: LadyJean Date: 27 May 10 - 11:17 PM It's Boxing Glove. I've known the song for half a century, since my mom read me "Davy and the Goblin", which is where it first appears. Davy is a sort of Alice In Wonderland story, where a boy goes on a "Believing voyage" and meets characters from fairy tales, including Little Red Riding Hood and her father, Robin Hood. When the goblin introduces him to Sindbad the Sailor, Sindbad sings "The Walloping Window Blind", one of several nonsense songs in the book. You will note that the party is off on the morning train, to cross the raging maine. Crossing the sea in a train would be more than a bit damp, and he is indeed, off to his love with a boxing glove then thousand miles away. Julie Andrews sang it on the Muppet Show and punched a muppet each time she sang the chorus. |
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Subject: RE: Help: Capital Ship's 'boxing glove'?!?! From: GUEST Date: 08 Jun 10 - 10:25 PM This song camne to my mind today, and I could not remember all the words, so I did a Web search in Google and found several versions. As children in the 1950s, my sister and I used to sing it from an old, old songbook my parents had at home. This book combined two of the verses to shorten the song: "All nautical pride we laid aside As we ran the vessel ashore On the Gulliby Isles where the Pooh-Pooh smiles, And the Rubbily Updugs roar. We sat on the edge of a sandy ledge And shot at the whistling bee-ee-ee, While the cinnamon bats wore waterproof hats As they dipped in the shining sea." In this songbook version, the line about the captain's dining was, "Off toasted pigs and pickles and figs, and gunnery bread each day." And it was "rugbug bark" and the "rugbug tree" in the songbook we had. (Some of the versions of lyrics I saw today had "rugabug" or "rubabug".) George |
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Subject: RE: Help: Capital Ship's 'boxing glove'?!?! From: GUEST Date: 09 Jun 10 - 07:27 AM Also, in that old songbook, the Chinese junk was "chubby and square", not "stubby and square" as in some other versions. George |
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Subject: RE: Help: Capital Ship's 'boxing glove'?!?! From: Howard Jones Date: 09 Jun 10 - 09:35 AM I've always known the "government ship" version, never heard the "boxing glove" one. It strikes me as the sort of nonsense re-working which kids delight in, which has somehow stuck. |
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Subject: RE: Help: Capital Ship's 'boxing glove'?!?! From: LadyJean Date: 02 Sep 10 - 12:16 AM The author of Davy and the Goblin specialized in nonsense of the Alice in Wonderland type. As with Jabberwocky, sometimes it didn't make a great deal of sense. If you can find the book, Sindbad does explain some of the lyrics, though, as the Goblin explains, you can't believe a word he says. |
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Subject: RE: Help: Capital Ship's 'boxing glove'?!?! From: GUEST,Bill Date: 20 Nov 10 - 01:11 PM I used to think "boxing glove" was really "box & gloves" suggesting dressing up to see his love with gift in hand. |
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Subject: RE: Help: Capital Ship's 'boxing glove'?!?! From: Crowhugger Date: 20 Nov 10 - 02:07 PM To all who revive this thread from time to time, a heartfelt "Thank you!" for the many memories it brings. As a child aged 10 yrs, 'A Capital Ship' was the first song I learned outside the realm of home that really tickled my fancy. When learning guitar at age 12 or 13 I delighted in making it my own to sing; at that stage of life most of my repertoire was learned from my mother, being shortly before I discovered records as a source of songs. |
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Subject: RE: Help: Capital Ship's 'boxing glove'?!?! From: Steve Gardham Date: 21 Nov 10 - 03:17 PM By sheer coincidence I bought a book for 50p today that had the song text in it. The book is dated 1928, published by The Co-operative Holiday Association. The cover says 'Summer Holidays in The Lake District, Programme, Songs &C'. No. 83 is 'A Capital Ship'. I have another edition from 1929 titled 'Summer Holidays at Whitby'. This has mostly the same songs with about 10 changed for similar songs from the likes of Lucy Broadwood's 'English County Songs'. |
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Subject: RE: Help: Capital Ship's 'boxing glove'?!?! From: GUEST,Allegra Date: 29 Oct 11 - 12:03 PM "I'm off to my love with a boxing glove 10000 miles away." This guy's a ring fighter, going from England to Australia to compete in the national boxing match and use the winning money to rescue and marry his girl, who was shipped By the British Government to Australia by the British Government -- where it sends its convicts. (see portion of lyrics below) Boxing matches in Australia and Ireland are like hockey to Canadians -- the fans go nuts! Oh, dark and dismal was the day, When last I saw my Meg She'd a Government band around each hand And another one round her leg And another one round her leg, my boys As the big ship left the bay, "Adieu," said she, "remember me, Ten thousand miles away!" |
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Subject: RE: Help: Capital Ship's 'boxing glove'?!?! From: dick greenhaus Date: 29 Oct 11 - 09:15 PM I've always thought that Walloping Window Blind was a funny parody of 10,000 miles away.Loved it as a kid.Still like it. |
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Subject: RE: Help: Capital Ship's 'boxing glove'?!?! From: Charley Noble Date: 30 Oct 11 - 11:50 AM Know that more thousands of us are eagerly awaiting the resolution of this thread. Cheerily, Charley Noble |
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Subject: RE: Help: Capital Ship's 'boxing glove'?!?! From: Mooh Date: 12 Mar 13 - 03:17 PM More trivia. Completely aside from everything, I didn't know I actually had the words for this. I was just going through some old songbooks of my Mum and Dad's and one fell open to the page with the lyrics for "A Capital Ship". They're given as alternate words to "Ten Thousand Miles Away". Key of D, 2/4 time, piano and solo vocal arrangement. The book is The Scottish Students' Songbook, the introduction of which is dated 1891, the first preface is dated 1891, the second preface is undated but has to be after 1900 (by a reference made therein), in the back is a preface to the third edition dated 1892. Perhaps a little confusing. Anyway, there was a companion volume of British Songs published later. Publisher of both, Bayley & Ferguson, London and Glasgow. I suspect it came from Scotland with my grandparents, or was found here by them sometime after they arrived. The book would have been new then. An aside to this aside, another book fell open to The Land Of The Leal, which I now remember fondly but wouldn't have much cared about when I was young. Mum used to play such things at the piano. I have a single memory of her crying at the piano, I think the music reminded her of her parents who died when she was young, an only child. Peace, Mooh. |
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Subject: RE: Help: Capital Ship's 'boxing glove'?!?! From: GUEST,Hilary Date: 22 Nov 13 - 03:34 PM But who sang it when we were youngsters in the 50's? i want to find that recording. |
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Subject: RE: Help: Capital Ship's 'boxing glove'?!?! From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 22 Nov 13 - 09:32 PM We sang the "Capital Ship" song when I was in grade school in the 1930s. We used a phoney h'english h'accent. (Blow ye winds oy yo) Boxing glove rhymes with love, boxer shorts don't. |
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Subject: RE: Help: Capital Ship's 'boxing glove'?!?! From: Jim Carroll Date: 23 Nov 13 - 08:19 AM The boxing glove was a long-standing (pun intended) motif of both sea and Army folklore, as a 'cure' for masturbation. Along with 'the golden rivet' it was a well known sexual reference right up to the time I served my apprenticeship as an electrician for a ship-repair company on the Liverpool Docks in the 1950s/60s Jim Carroll |
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Subject: RE: Help: Capital Ship's 'boxing glove'?!?! From: DebC Date: 23 Nov 13 - 11:55 AM Thanks, Jim. I was confronted by a very angry radio listener a few years ago in which she said that I had taken a delightful children's song and with the story above had turned it into pornography. What a load of BS, IMO. I am glad to know that the story as told to me by someone else might have some truth to it. Debra Cowan |
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Subject: RE: Help: Capital Ship's 'boxing glove'?!?! From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 23 Nov 13 - 02:34 PM I wonder how far that boxing glove-masturbation connection spread and if the composer knew it. New to me. |
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Subject: RE: Help: Capital Ship's 'boxing glove'?!?! From: meself Date: 23 Nov 13 - 02:35 PM Well, I'm afraid I'm with the 'angry radio listener' insofar as the image of public schoolboys with or without boxing gloves, etc., adds nothing to my enjoyment of the song. But no doubt there's something wrong with me .... |
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Subject: RE: Help: Capital Ship's 'boxing glove'?!?! From: Jim Carroll Date: 23 Nov 13 - 03:04 PM "Thanks, Jim" You are welcome Debra - I wonder how your listener would have reacted to the delightful Golden Rivet legend - where young recruits were enticed to bend over by a story that one of the rivets placed low down near the ship's deck is made of pure gold; or the trick of getting a newby to hang half-in, half out of the ship's porthole by being told that the ship runs on wheels - "I cant see any Wheeeeeeeeeels!" Or even being a youngster being invited to partake in slice of 'Navy Cake'.... - all common examples of nautical erotica. Jim Carroll |
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Subject: RE: Help: Capital Ship's 'boxing glove'?!?! From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 23 Nov 13 - 09:13 PM I think that the "boxing glove" was selected to give a nonsensical pairing with "love," and no erotic thoughts were in the mind of the composer of those deathless verses. I have the Scottish School songbook, and the song appears in other children's songbooks; I haven't checked for original author of the parody or the date. |
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Subject: RE: Help: Capital Ship's 'boxing glove'?!?! From: DebC Date: 24 Nov 13 - 09:03 AM I found the song in the Flanders Collection and the source singer was Lena Bourne Fish. I do love all the different explanations for the boxing glove line and we will never really know the true intent of the parodist's reason for including it. Thanks for the discussion. Lively and informative. Debra Cowan |
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Subject: RE: Help: Capital Ship's 'boxing glove'?!?! From: Jack Campin Date: 24 Nov 13 - 10:53 AM I think you should sell boxing gloves at gigs with your picture on (or perhaps Lena Bourne Fish's picture), complete with a tube of Vaseline (or perhaps rigging block grease to be authentic). And send a free one to Disgusted Listener for inspiring the idea. |
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Subject: RE: Help: Capital Ship's 'boxing glove'?!?! From: GUEST Date: 14 Sep 21 - 09:09 PM I've wondered if Boxing Glove is slang or a euphenism for a condom |
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