Lyr Req: On the Good Ship Yacki-Hicki-Doo-La

Subject: Good ship Yackee-hickee-doo-laa
From: Penny S.
Date: 28 Jun 99 - 05:57 PM

I've been reminded by the privateering thread of this song which my father sang. The name of the ship is probably misspelled. It includes the lines "Once aboard the lugger and the girl is mine," and "One girl's father came all the way from Penge". (Penge is an unremarkable urban village in what was once Kent, but is now in South London, between Crystal Palace and Bromley.) Does anyone have access to this?

Penny

Subject: Lyr Req: Good Ship Yackihickiedoola
From: Sorcha
Date: 23 Sep 01 - 03:26 PM

Transferred from the FAQ thread:

Subject: RE: Mudcat FAQ - Newcomer's Guide
From: GUEST,voxfox
Date: 23-Sep-01 - 03:16 PM

My mother has been searching for the words to a tune called "The Good Ship Yakihickidoola". So far I have come up blank also I'm not sure of the spelling. She remembers it when she was a girl being played at the Hippodrome by Harry Champion.Hope someone can help. Thanks a bunch.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Good Ship Yackihickiedoola
From: Sorcha
Date: 23 Sep 01 - 03:31 PM

All I found was the spelling--'Yacki Hicki Doola'---and stuff for sale. No lyrics posted anywhere that I could find. Sorry

Subject: Lyr Add: ON THE GOOD SHIP YACKI-HICKI-DOO-LA^^
From: Joe Offer
Date: 23 Sep 01 - 07:29 PM

Found it.
-Joe Offer-

---

ON THE GOOD SHIP YACKI-HICKI-DOO-LA
(Billy Merson)

I'm a bold bad villain, I roam the angry sea
My life is one of crime and piracy
If a sweet young damsel should chance to catch my eye,
I tell to her the story that the spider told the fly

CHORUS
Then I snap my finger, ha, ha, ha, ha!
And I snap the other one, ho, ho, ho, ho!
I don't care should the parent pine
Once aboard the lugger and the girl is mine.
Then I set my sails and sail away
No pirate e'er was cooler,
For wherever I go, I fear no foe,
On the good ship Yacki-Hicki-Doo La.

One girl's father came all the way from Penge
On board my craft he vowed he'd have revenge,
So I drew my cutlass, and ther beneath the moon,
I stabbed him in the fo-c'stle and I punctured his jibboom.

CHORUS
Then I snap my finger....

A U-boat pirate surprised me once at sea,
And tried to work a little strafe on me.
When the submarine skipper said, "Now's the fatal hour!"
I ran my blooming rudder through his blinking conning tower.

CHORUS 2
Then I snapped my finger, ha, ha, ha, ha!
And I snapped the other one, ho, ho, ho, ho!
Overboad the commander fell,
Shouted, "Mercy, Kamerad!" then nose-dived down to hell.
Then I set my sails and sailed away
No pirate e'er was cooler,
For wherever I go, I fear no foe,
On the good ship Yacki-Hicki-Doo La.

Words and music by Billy Merson, 1917
Source: Music Hall Songbook (Peter Gammond)

@humor @musichall
filename[ YACKHICK
JRO^^

---

Click to play

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Good Ship Yackihickiedoola
From: GUEST,voxfox
Date: 23 Sep 01 - 08:14 PM

Joe, you are the greatest. Thanks ever so much for your help. Mom will be thrilled when I tell her the words have been found. Again thanks, and keep up the good work. This is a lovely site.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Good Ship Yackihickiedoola
From: Penny S.
Date: 25 Sep 01 - 05:14 PM

And I would like to thank you too. It's one of the songs my Dad knows a bit of. There was a radio play by Alan Plater recently, in which a character was required to sing this piece, and I thought I'd be able to pick it up, but it turned out that the only bit broadcast was the bit my Dad knows, about Penge.

Penny

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Good Ship Yackihickidoola
From: Joe Offer
Date: 27 Jun 03 - 02:52 AM

As a public service, I have posted the tune.
This is "public service"?
Oy.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Good Ship Yackihickiedoola
From: GUEST,nuclearyeti hotmail
Date: 10 Dec 03 - 11:04 PM

Brilliant. I have been trolling the net, trying to remember the tune, the only snatch of which i could remember being "the good ship yacki" (which I spent a while finding out how to spell.

It has been occasionally nagging me for years (where did I hear that? Did I make it up? Was I imagining things?).

Here, at last, I find the answer, and the MIDI to prove it!

Thanks.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Good Ship Yackihickiedoola
From: Charley Noble
Date: 11 Dec 03 - 09:29 AM

Good work, Joe!

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Good Ship Yackihickiedoola
From: Peter T.
Date: 11 Dec 03 - 09:34 AM

"Our hero!!" (eyes bat in general direction, ladies wave handkerchiefs)

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Good Ship Yackihickiedoola
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Dec 03 - 09:59 AM

well - congratulations two years late is better then never

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Good Ship Yackihickiedoola
From: GUEST,Ewan McVicar
Date: 11 Dec 03 - 12:45 PM

I've a 78 recording of this somewhere, by Billy Merson himself I think.

In verse two, rather than
'on board my craft'
he sings
'Swarmed aboard the lugger, swore he'd have revenge'

I've always relished the notion of the motion of a one-man swarm.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Good Ship Yackihickiedoola
From: Joybell
Date: 11 Dec 03 - 04:31 PM

I'm waving all the hankerchiefs I can find too! I love this place! Joy

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Good Ship Yackihickiedoola
From: Billy Weeks
Date: 12 Dec 03 - 12:59 PM

Billy Merson recorded the song in 1933 for the Decca F series - so a very listenable electric recording. There may be oneor two of you who are unable toplay 78s (or so I've been told told) but if you have a vinyl deck, this performance was reissued on EMI Music For Pleasure MFP 1146 'The Great Days of MusicHall'. That was about 30 years ago, but it shouldn't be too difficult to find a copy. It must also have been issued on CD, but I can't at the moment remember where.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Good Ship Yackihickiedoola
From: GUEST,mikes
Date: 06 Apr 05 - 06:15 PM

i am looking for the sheet music for yacki hicki doola
any ideas where I may find it?
Thanks   Mike

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Good Ship Yackihickiedoola
From: Peace
Date: 06 Apr 05 - 06:45 PM

Available here.

found at the following site (via Google)

The Sheetmusic Warehouse - Search for "O"

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Good Ship Yackihickiedoola
From: Peace
Date: 06 Apr 05 - 06:50 PM

or Google

ON THE GOOD SHIP YACKI-HICKI-DOO-LA, sheetmusic

and look at the sites

Good luch to you.

BM

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Good Ship Yackihickiedoola
From: GUEST,Alexander
Date: 06 Apr 05 - 06:50 PM

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Good Ship Yackihickiedoola
From: GUEST,Alexander
Date: 06 Apr 05 - 06:55 PM

Joe fired me, I'm now a Guest. sob sob Anyway, thanks for the lyrics to this song. I have pirate ancestors I suspect, and so this song stirs my blood, especially that lustful line about the girl being mine. Isn't there an earlier version of Penge out on the Salisbury Plain somewhere? Stone Penge perhaps?? Boo!! Hiss!! Crummy Humor!!! Sorry!!!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Good Ship Yackihickiedoola
From: Peace
Date: 06 Apr 05 - 06:56 PM

Alexander,

Log in again. Your cookie needs a reset.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Good Ship Yackihickiedoola
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 07 Apr 05 - 09:58 AM

Another one for The Cookie Monster!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: On the Good Ship Yacki-Hicki-Doo-La
From: GUEST,R M Chamberlain (Bonita, California)
Date: 27 Jun 08 - 07:35 PM

I was born in 1920 and traveled from Virginia, USA to London, England three times (alternate years) on the Aquitania and Mauritania to visit my grandmother an two aunts (staying a year each time). I remember,as a child of 5 years of age (1925), being taken to a London theater where I heard the Good Ship Y H Doola sung on stage by a man wearing a pirates cocked hat. Through the years I remembered part of the first verse and all of the chorus but not the whole song. Today, June 26, 2008, I finally found all the verses. When I heard it first the phrase girl is mine was prize is mine and no pirate ere was cooler was (cruela).

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: On the Good Ship Yacki-Hicki-Doo-La
From: GUEST,tobydog
Date: 11 Oct 08 - 06:26 PM

Thank you so much - I have been trying to find all the words and tune to the Good Ship YHDL for years. I can remember my grandfather singing it to me as I sat on his knee. Cheers. Joan

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: On the Good Ship Yacki-Hicki-Doo-La
From: GUEST,David, Belfast
Date: 04 Feb 09 - 06:37 AM

My father in law used to sing a lot of these "come all ye's" to my children and now my grandchildren listen to them.

Often some of the lines were adapted to our local situation and in this case the penultimate line of the chorus became:

"She smacked her lips when she smelt the chips ...."

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: On the Good Ship Yacki-Hicki-Doo-La
From: GUEST,Eve
Date: 13 Mar 09 - 10:31 AM

I'm looking for a different song with the same line - there was a record in the 30s:
Old Sandy was a sailor and he'd just come home from sea
When he saw a girl named Sally who was standing on the quay
He shpouted "Come aboard Miss, We'll be sailing with the tide
She said "Go to Halifax" and poor old Sandy cried,
"Once aboard the lugger and the girl is mine,
The girl is mine, the girl is main
The rain may come and the sun won't shine
But once aboard the lugger and the girl is mine."

I don't remember other verses but it ends:
For a fortnight she won't sit down to dine
But got her on the lugger and the girl is mine.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: On the Good Ship Yacki-Hicki-Doo-La
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 14 Mar 09 - 03:01 PM

The sheet music for ON THE GOOD SHIP "YACKI HICKI DOO LA" can be seen at the web site of The National Library of Australia.

Lyrics are identical to those that Joe posted above EXCEPT "Yacki Hicki Doo La" is in quotation marks and spelled without hyphens; and it has "——" in place of "hell".

...which makes me wonder: How did singers handle words like "hell" in those days? If "hell" couldn't be printed (although, obviously, it could be implied), did that mean it couldn't be sung? Did they sing "hell" or did they pause and be silent for one beat? I suppose it depends on the singer and the venue. But does anyone know for sure?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: On the Good Ship Yacki-Hicki-Doo-La
From: GUEST,Jack Edwards.
Date: 04 Aug 09 - 05:08 AM

I add my thanks,my Dad used to sing it to me on his knee, He was one of the pianists who used to play accompaniments to the silent films in the old days. Great Site this! Do dads still sing to their kids?Jack.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: On the Good Ship Yacki-Hicki-Doo-La
From: GUEST
Date: 03 Jan 11 - 09:39 AM

I snap my fingers, Ha-ha-ha
I snap the other ones, Hp-ho-ho.
I don't care if the ladies pine,
Onc aboard the lugger and the girl is mine.
.---- and off we go
No pirate could be cooler,
Where e'er I go I fear no foe
On the good ship Yackie Hicky Doo Lah.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: On the Good Ship Yacki-Hicki-Doo-La
From: GUEST,sheila
Date: 26 Mar 15 - 10:33 AM

lt's taken me a long time to find this: my father also used to sing
snatches of this song. l remember "once aboard the lugger and the girl is mine"; but not the line before it. He called the ship "Yippy happy hoola"    Many thanks.

Subject: Lyr Add: ONCE ABOARD THE LUGGER (Leslie Sarony)
From: GUEST,#
Date: 26 Mar 15 - 11:30 AM

From: GUEST,Eve
Date: 13 Mar 09 - 10:31 AM

You wanted words to the following:


ONCE ABOARD THE LUGGER
(Leslie Sarony)
As recorded by: Leslie Sarony, acc. by Studio Band Dir. Jay Wilbur
Recorded January 1932

[Side A:]

Sammy was a sailor and he'd just come home from sea.
He saw a girl named Sally who was standing on the quay.
He shouted, "Come aboard, miss. We'll be sailing with the tide."
She said, "Go to Halifax!" then poor old Sammy cried:

Once aboard the lugger and the girl is mine,
The girl is mine, the girl is mine.
The rain may come and the son won't shine,
But once aboard the lugger and the girl is mine.

"We'll splice the main jib boom," he cried. "You can't give me the slip.
I'll shiver all me timbers but I'll get you on the ship."
She said, "You go and hoist your slacks and hoist yourself as well".
He said, "I'm not an oyster," then he hoisted up a yell:

"Oh, once aboard the lugger and the girl is mine,
The girl is mine, the girl is mine.
On the dotted line she'll refuse to sign,
But once aboard the lugger and the girl is mine."

He chased her in the Sailor's Rest and bought her lots of gin.
He chased her by the waterfront and there they both fell in.
He knew she couldn't swim and so he grabbed her by the hair.
He said, "You'll pardon me, but sailors really do not care".

"Once aboard the lugger and the girl is mine,
The girl is mine, the girl is mine.
I'm a real old salt and she don't like brine,
But once aboard the lugger and the girl is mine."

She shouted out, "Unhand me, sir!" and ran across a field.
He chased along behind her and said, "Maiden, you must yield."
She ran across the village green and both fell down a well.
He grabbed her by the after deck and then began to yell:

"Once aboard the lugger and the girl is mine,
The girl is mine, the girl is mine.
She's a fiery catch; she can scratch and whine,
But once aboard the lugger and the girl is mine."

She got away from Sammy and she bolted up the road.
Sammy couldn't run so fast because he's pigeon-toed.
He swore that he would find her in or else he'd find her out.
He caused an awful traffic jam when he began to shout:

"Oh, once aboard the lugger and the girl is mine,
The girl is mine, the girl is mine.
Though she won't cling like a clinging vine,
Oh, once aboard the lugger and the girl is mine.

[Side B:]

"Once aboard the lugger and the girl is mine,
The girl is mine, the girl is mine.
The rain may come and the sun won't shine,
But once aboard the lugger and the girl is mine."

He ran up to a farmer, who had corn stuck in his hair,
And said, "Across the field is that my filly over there?"
The farmer said, "I dunno, sir, but that's a poor old cow,"
But Sammy said, "I'll call her lots of farmyard names, and how!

"Once aboard the lugger and the girl is mine,
The girl is mine, the girl is mine.
Though I'm fond of cows, I must draw the line.
Once aboard the lugger and the girl is mine."

He asked a postman if he'd seen a female hard as nails.
The postman said, "It takes me all my time to watch the mails."
Said Sammy, "If you find her, you can send her C.O.D.
I'll give her C.O.D. for she's been C.O.D.ing me!

"Once aboard the lugger and the girl is mine,
The girl is mine, the girl is mine.
I can register her for one and nine.
Once aboard the lugger and the girl is mine.

He stopped the local fire brigade and said, "I've lost my flame."
The captain said, "If she's put out, the firemen aren't to blame."
Said Sammy, "No, she's not put out. She's vanished just like smoke,
But when I put my hose on her, she'll find it's not a joke.

"Once aboard the lugger and the girl is mine,
The girl is mine, the girl is mine.
For a fortnight she won't sit down to dine.
Once aboard the lugger and the girl is mine."

He went into a baker's and he murmured very low,
"I've lost my bit of pastry and I haven't any dough."
The baker said, "Some tarts are in the oven burning hot,"
But Sammy said, "Mine's hot enough to scorch the blinking lot.

"Oh, once aboard the lugger and the girl is mine,
The girl is mine, the girl is mine.
A slice from a nice cut cake is fine.
Once aboard the lugger and the girl is mine."

He called in at Police Court just to see if she'd been pinched.
A copper said, "You run away, or else you may get lynched."
They shoved him in a cell where he began to rave and shout,
But Sammy sang this song when Sally came to bail him out:

"Once aboard the lugger and the girl is mine,
The girl is mine, the girl is mine.
We're good friends now and she's paid my fine.
Got her on the lugger and the girl is mine."


(Transcribed from John Wright's 78 RPM
Record Collection by Bill Huntley - October 2013)

The above is from http://lyricsplayground.com/alpha/songs/o/onceaboardthelugger.shtml