Songs of Dismemberment

Subject: RE: Songs of Dismemberment
From: Joe_F
Date: 18 Jun 03 - 07:12 PM

Inasmuch as limericks are often sung, the following by E. Gorey perhaps qualifies:

The partition of Salvador Scowles
Was a sickener. They came on his bowels
In a firkin. His brain
Was found clogging a drain,
And his toes were wrapped up in some towels.

Subject: RE: Songs of Dismemberment
From: GUEST,Dave H
Date: 18 Jun 03 - 02:37 PM

Werewolves of London

"You better stay away from him, He'll rip your lungs out Jim."

Starry, Starry Night - not that it's in the song, but it is about Vincent Van Gogh, like a good musician, he learned to paint by ear. DOH!

Subject: RE: Songs of Dismemberment
From: Schantieman
Date: 18 Jun 03 - 02:19 PM

Side by Side

We got married on Sunday:
It nearly lasted till Monday.
When the guests were all gone
And we were alone
Side by side.

We got ready for bed then
I very nearly dropped dead when
Her teeth and her hair she laid on the chair
Side by side

(middle eight)
Imagine my amazement
When out popped her glass eye so small -
She laid it on the table,
Then propped her leg in the hall

Well there I stood, boken hearted:
From most of my wife I was parted,
So I slept on the chair
(There was more of here there)
Side by side.

(big finish)
Yes I slept on the chair
There was more of her there!
Side......by......side!


Enjoy

Steve

Subject: RE: Songs of Dismemberment
From:
Date: 18 Jun 03 - 11:22 AM

We are looking for a song that goes like this:

My little Darlin
When we were married and the first night we were wed
you put your false teeth upon the mantle
and your wooden leg under the bed

... then something like:
you put your right eye on the table
your false hair.....


and it ends...

Mylittle Darlin I would have kissed you
But you were scattered everywhere


Does anyone know if this is a song recorded by an artist?

Subject: RE: Songs of Dismemberment
From: RWilhelm
Date: 15 Oct 01 - 05:37 PM

Leprosy
I'm not half the man I used to be

Subject: RE: Songs of Dismemberment
From: GUEST
Date: 15 Oct 01 - 04:29 PM

"I left my heart .... in San Francisco????"

CC

Subject: RE: Songs of Dismemberment
From: Metchosin
Date: 15 Oct 01 - 04:07 PM

Charlie, he may have been more than the sum of his parts, but if the fate of the Cook is the example of the food preparation, when "he ups with his heels, and smothered his squeals, in the scum of the boiling broth", dismemberment seems to have occurred after cooking and not before, so I'm not certain if that counts.*BG*

Subject: RE: Songs of Dismemberment
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 15 Oct 01 - 03:52 PM

Alex Campbell's--- 3 Jolly consumptives # 3 jolly consumptives...cough.....cough........spit( do it don't sing the words) # One lung to you; and one to you. Alex was great but nobody ever accused him of being tastefull. God rest his soul, I miss him still. Jock

Subject: RE: Songs of Dismemberment
From: Charley Noble
Date: 15 Oct 01 - 03:33 PM

Then there's the lovely survivor's poem from "The Rhyme of the Nancy Brig" whose chorus runs:

I am the cook and the captain bold,
And the mate of the Nancy brig,
The midshipmite, the bosun tight
And the crew of the captain's gig.

Suffice to say the survivor was more than the sum of his parts.

Subject: RE: Songs of Dismemberment
From: SINSULL
Date: 15 Oct 01 - 01:49 PM

"I Ain't Got Nobody"? courtesy of Mel Brooks.

Subject: RE: Songs of Dismemberment
From: artbrooks
Date: 15 Oct 01 - 09:54 AM

Adrienne: sorry, my mistake in transcription. "Cool" is correct.

Subject: RE: Songs of Dismemberment
From: GUEST,Adrienne
Date: 15 Oct 01 - 09:43 AM

Artbrooks, I'd change "cold" to "cool" to rhyme with school... Funny song!

Subject: RE: Songs of Dismemberment
From: artbrooks
Date: 15 Oct 01 - 09:06 AM

Just ran across this in an old "Sing Out" reprint. It is allegedly the alma mater of the National Embalming School, and is sung to the tune from "Oh Tannenbaum":

To thee we sing, to thee we drool
National Embalming School
We stuff the corpse, we stuff the ghoul
National Embalming School
If you feel hollow deep inside
We fill you with formaldehyde
Our boys get hot ere you get cold
National Embalming School

Subject: RE: Songs of Dismemberment
From: GUEST,Adrienne
Date: 15 Oct 01 - 07:59 AM

My favorite dismemberment song: John Prine's "Please Don't Bury Me".

"...Please don't bury me Down in the cold cold ground. I'd rather have them cut me up And pass me all around. Throw my brain in a hurricane, Let a blind man have my eyes, And the deaf can take both my ears If they don't mind the size."

Subject: RE: Songs of Dismemberment
From: Ralphie
Date: 15 Oct 01 - 03:02 AM

Oh What a bloodthirsty lot we are!
The mention of Kenny Everett reminds me of another song in his "Bottom 40"
"Transfusion" by Nervous Norvous
Each verse ending with lines such as
Slip the fluid in me, Loius
Slip the Crimson in me, Jimson
Put the Claret in me, Barrett
Also, virtually anything by Pat Campbell. (The Deal is particularly fine)
And, I do remember a song we used to do many years ago. Mary Thompson, which had the wonderful verse..

Twice more all with his horrid knife
He ran her body through
Her throat was cut from ear to ear
Most dreadful for to view
But, still she smiling said to him
While trembling with fear
Oh David, David spare me life
Think of your baby dear!!
Now....Don't have nightmares...Ralphie

Subject: RE: Songs of Dismemberment
From: John in Brisbane
Date: 14 Oct 01 - 09:50 PM

Thanks so much to all who cintributed to this thread - I'm blown away by the collective knowledge, even though I shouldn't be surprised. Now for the search of what is in the DT, and what lyrics have tunes!

Many, many thanks John

Subject: RE: Songs of Dismemberment
From: Abby Sale
Date: 14 Oct 01 - 12:46 PM

All excellent suggestions and certainly a Worthy Topic.

I'd offer this version of "The Cruel Ship's Carpenter' with its last verse:

Then he hastened to the forecastle with speed,
There he met his pretty Polly which made his heart bleed.
She ripped him and she stripped him and she tore him in three,
Because he had murdered the baby and she.

(See Pretty Polly)

Jow F:

"Chylde Owlet" has long been one of my favorite ditties. I often quote MacColl when I sing it: He writes that the event of family members killing each other by any & all means is common enough in Ballads. However... "There's something off-beat about having one's nephew torn to pieces by wild horses but, as Professor Child has observed, 'the last two stanzas are unusually successful.'"

Subject: RE: Songs of Dismemberment
From: Gareth
Date: 14 Oct 01 - 12:43 PM

Or extra memberment as in "Jake the Peg" ????

Gareth

Subject: RE: Songs of Dismemberment
From: pavane
Date: 14 Oct 01 - 04:23 AM

If we are including dismemberment of animals, then Bold Reynard the Fox and The Cutty Wren spring to mind

Subject: RE: Songs of Dismemberment
From: Metchosin
Date: 13 Oct 01 - 07:33 PM

how abount making mince pies from children's thighs and feeding them to the fairies?

Bedlam Boys

Great song!!!

Old Blind Dogs does a fine version.

Subject: RE: Songs of Dismemberment
From: Joe_F
Date: 13 Oct 01 - 07:02 PM

Child Owlet (Child 291). Man falsely accused of attempted rape is torn apart by four horses:

There was not a kow in Darling muir
Nor ae a piece o a rash,
But drappit o Childe Owlet's blude
And pieces o his flesh.

I believe that the cutting off of the three blind mice's tails counts as dismemberment.

Subject: RE: Songs of Dismemberment
From: Joe Offer
Date: 13 Oct 01 - 06:16 PM

How about Three Blind Mice? It doesn't specifically mention dismemberment, but Three Blind Mice Are Dead would be a suitable followup.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: Lyr Add: THE LONESOME DEATH OF CACTUS NELL
From: Little Hawk
Date: 13 Oct 01 - 05:38 PM

THE LONESOME DEATH OF CACTUS NELL

Oh none so fair as Cactus Nell
Afore her horse upon her fell
Alas, poor Nell, I knowed her well
And there was none so fair as Cactus Nell

She went out riding after dark
To the river's side to court and spark
To meet some cowboy I am told
But instead she met with a prairie dog hole

Oh, her legs was crushed, and her ribs was broke
I heard her Pa break down and choke
As he knelt beside the corpse so bloody
Down by the banks of the great Big Muddy

So they picked her up and carried her back
All wrapped up fine in a gunny sack
Her boyfriends numbered a hundren 'n nine
They had all come round to weep and pine

Ten cowboys brave did lower her down
Into that cold and heartless ground
I heard that lonesome death bell knell
Above the grave of Cactus Nell

Then we all got drunk and we hanged the horse
Though the poor thing warn't to blame, of course
But someone had to pay the bill
For the lonesome death of Cactus Nell

Oh none so fair as Cactus Nell
Afore her horse upon her fell
Alas, poor Nell, I knowed her well
And there was none so fair as Cactus Nell

Subject: RE: Songs of Dismemberment
From: RWilhelm
Date: 13 Oct 01 - 03:46 PM

Jackknife
by the late great Jeffery Frederick

I's cleaing my jackknife when you did appear
Had to fight with you, I cut off your ear
Yodelay my little darlin' don't you come here no more
Take this as a warning, get you ear off my floor

I throwed some sawdust where the blood puddle lie
I watched you run screaming, I prayed you would die
Yodelay my little darlin' don't you come here no more
Take this as a warning, get you ear off my floor

Subject: RE: Songs of Dismemberment
From: Willa
Date: 13 Oct 01 - 03:34 PM

Charley; this one?
Dunderbuck
oh dunderbuck, Dunderbuck, how could you be so mean, to ever have invented the sausage meat machine?
Now long-tailed rats and pussy cats they'll never more be seen, They'll all be ground to sausage meat in Dunderbeck's machine.

Subject: RE: Songs of Dismemberment
From: Susanne (skw)
Date: 13 Oct 01 - 03:21 PM

I haven't seen 'Pegleg Johnson' by Shel Silverstein mentioned. ("I'm a three-legged man with a two-legged woman Being chased round the country by a one-legged fool")

Subject: RE: Songs of Dismemberment
From: weepiper
Date: 13 Oct 01 - 01:58 PM

There's always 'The Carpenter and the Sexton' by Dave Goulder :

So the carpenter went for his chisel and blade;
The sexton was honing the edge of his spade.
And driven by jealousy, anger and pain,
They hacked at each other, hacked at each other
Like butchers insane.

The sexton was missing a nose and a toe;
The carpenter's bowels were beginning to show.
But there with the dead at the edge of the town
They fought till the blood, they fought till the blood
Was like dew on the ground.

:-!

Subject: RE: Songs of Dismemberment
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 13 Oct 01 - 01:46 PM

One of Ramblin' Jack Elliott's songs included the following:

It was only yesterday that Jane and me got married
You can bet yer life I was a happy groom.
There was only one thing filled my heart with sadness
That parts of her were scattered all over the room.
Her glass eye and false teeth was on the mantel
And on the bed she hung her hank of hair.
But there was only one thing that filled my heart with sadness
When she throwed her wooden leg upon the chair.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: Songs of Dismemberment
From: pavane
Date: 13 Oct 01 - 01:15 PM

Chevy Chase: (version quoted by Karl Dallas)
For Witherington needs must I wail
As one in doleful dumps
For when his legs were smitten off
He fought all on his stumps

A bit like Benbow.

The Bold Trooper - cut off the ears of a tailor he found with his wife.

There is also a print c1670 in the Bodley library of a Priest who was given a Bobbit in similar circiumstances by a butcher. No tune available though, I think.

The Kerry Recruit 'where heads, legs and arms were scattered around'

Subject: RE: Songs of Dismemberment
From: pavane
Date: 13 Oct 01 - 12:54 PM

Yes, weepiper, thats the one I meant!

Subject: RE: Songs of Dismemberment
From: raredance
Date: 13 Oct 01 - 12:37 AM

"Super Skier" - When they finally brought him down they had to use three tobaggans to carry all the pieces down the hill.

rich r

Subject: RE: Songs of Dismemberment
From: GUEST
Date: 12 Oct 01 - 11:44 PM

Not to mention "Alouette" in which a poor little birdie gets pulled apart, body part by body part.

Subject: RE: Songs of Dismemberment
From: Max Tone
Date: 12 Oct 01 - 08:29 PM

Ma Hip's dis-Connected from ma thigh-bone
Me head's dis-connected tae ma neck-bone
Sae see the work o' the sword.

'Catters please contribute further sick verses........

Subject: RE: Songs of Dismemberment
From: Max Tone
Date: 12 Oct 01 - 07:47 PM

Not to forget any songs about MPs losing their parliamentary seats -- or should that be flung out on their asses?
After all, democracy is all about dis-memberment!

Rob

Subject: RE: Songs of Dismemberment
From: GUEST,JTT
Date: 12 Oct 01 - 07:44 PM

The old RAF song from the Great War, A Poor Aviator Lay Dying:

which has one verse that goes:

Take the manifold out of my larynx,
And the cylinders out of my brain,
Take the piston rods out of my kidneys,
And assemble the engine again."

Subject: RE: Songs of Dismemberment
From:
Date: 12 Oct 01 - 07:09 PM

Didn't see a mention of 'Burke and Hare' anywhere

Jack

Subject: RE: Songs of Dismemberment
From: Gareth
Date: 12 Oct 01 - 06:23 PM

Ah Rugby songs - remember the Rugby version of Abdul the Bul Bul Emire

Give me time i'll remember the words, but as a taster -

"The cream of the joke,
came when they had broke,
Was laughed at for years by the Czar,
For Abdul the Fool,
Had left half his tool
Up Ivan Skawinsky Skzar."

Obviously dis memberment

Gareth, lowering the tone.

Subject: RE: Songs of Dismemberment
From: SharonA
Date: 12 Oct 01 - 06:04 PM

"I'm Being Swallowed by a Boa Constrictor" (oh no, he swallowed my toe; oh gee, he swallowed my knee; etc.)

Here's one that doesn't actually mention dismemberment but is about someone who hacked himself up a bit before he did himself in completely: Don McLean's "Vincent" (starry starry night)

Hmmm... what about "All of Me" and "All or Nothing at All"? Or maybe "I Can't Help Falling in Love with You" (take my hand, take my whole life, too...)? Wait; I know: "I Fall to Pieces"!


It may not fit the theme exactly, but there's a weird little big-band song from the 1930s sung by Bunny Berrigan (who was a man!) entitled "My Heart and I" and it goes like this:

My heart and I were discussing your charms;
We decided that you should be in my arms.
My arms and I felt a thrill at the start;
We decided that you should be in my heart.
We're so in love with you, just my heart and I.
Love me, too; then as years go by,
Both my heart and I will forever be true
For all that we want is your heart and you.

Subject: RE: Songs of Dismemberment
From: Charley Noble
Date: 12 Oct 01 - 05:29 PM

Well, after scanning what's been offered I can contribute "Sweeney Todd the Barber", famous for providing his sweetie the fixings for her wonderful meat pies, and "Dundebeck's Machine," that incredible sausage machines into which them rats and long tailed cats were periodically ground up, to be followed by Dundebeck himself when he craweled inside to clear a jam...

Subject: RE: Songs of Dismemberment
From: Mr Red
Date: 12 Oct 01 - 05:10 PM

Reading the above suggestions makes my effort well qualified.
the Death of Queen Jane

Subject: RE: Songs of Dismemberment
From: Max Tone
Date: 12 Oct 01 - 05:09 PM

.....Or the leper, losing at poker, who threw his hand in....
Rob

Subject: RE: Songs of Dismemberment
From: Deda
Date: 12 Oct 01 - 04:23 PM

"Bang bang Maxwell's silver hammer came down on her head"

We don't actually hear about lopped off body parts, but I think it belongs in the general ballpark anyway.

Subject: RE: Songs of Dismemberment
From: Metchosin
Date: 12 Oct 01 - 02:32 PM

A lot of songs by the Swedish group Garmarna qualifies. Songs about werewolves ripping the arms and legs off maidens and other nordic tales of blood and gore.

Subject: RE: Songs of Dismemberment
From: Little Hawk
Date: 12 Oct 01 - 02:27 PM

There's some humorous song about Rippy the Gator (went chomp! chomp! chomp!)...the alligator in question bites off little Billy's arms, legs, and head in successive verses. I think the Arrogant Worms or someone like that did it.

- LH

Subject: RE: Songs of Dismemberment
From: weepiper
Date: 12 Oct 01 - 02:11 PM

Hey Pavane, I was going to post about that one where he gets put out for the wolves, my mum used to sing it. I think it's called 'The Death Of Young Andrew'. It's pretty grisly on several levels. I think the story was Andrew mistreated a girl (who then died of exposure when her stepmother wouldn't let her in after he'd stripped her naked and sent her home?), so the girl's brothers avenged her by breaking Andrew's arms and legs and binding him to a rock then leaving him for the wolves. Great song which I haven't heard for years

Subject: RE: Songs of Dismemberment
From: GUEST,Celtic Soul
Date: 12 Oct 01 - 12:25 PM

Cannonball/Mrs. McGraw

Or, if you'd like something a little more modern, go try to find the lyrics/tune for "DOA" by a band called "Bloodrock". It was a one shot wonder hit in the very early 70's.

Subject: RE: Songs of Dismemberment
From: pavane
Date: 12 Oct 01 - 12:23 PM

'Ahmed and Abdullah' - parody of Obla Di, Obla Da

'Just to keep the Friday show from being dull You see them separate poor Ahmed from his hand'

Not sure if this song has been posted though. Maybe one day... Probably of interest only if you have lived in Saudi.

Subject: RE: Songs of Dismemberment
From: pavane
Date: 12 Oct 01 - 12:16 PM

Maybe I should clarify Musgrave - in some versions, after killing Musgrave, he turns on his wife. 'He cut the paps from off her breast, great pity it was to see...' - Version sung by Martin Carthy again, I think.

Subject: RE: Songs of Dismemberment
From: pavane
Date: 12 Oct 01 - 12:13 PM

Not really dismemberment - but the Three Cripples (or Five Cripples in another version) from London. They got free drinks by scaring the pub customers when they removed all their false parts!

Also Martin Carthy sang a ballad in which someone had all his limbs broken and was then put out for the wolves. Can't remember the title at present.

Also Little Musgrave/Matty Groves

Subject: RE: Songs of Dismemberment
From: Mary in Kentucky
Date: 12 Oct 01 - 08:40 AM

There is a song about The Headless Horseman from the musical The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. I didn't include it here because I've never heard it. You can find the words on a Google search.