Discussion: We Never Mention Aunt Clara

Subject: We Never Mention Aunt Clara
From: GUEST,Becky
Date: 20 Dec 00 - 04:32 PM

I was pleased to see "We Never Mention Aunt Clara" quoted in the "How many fallen women?" thread -- I haven't seen it elsewhere. I got it from my parents and their Appalachian Mountain Club (New York Chapter) canoeing friends. Digitrad has more verses than I got from them, though!

Anyone have any information (or good speculations) on the origins/age of this song?

~ Becky in Tucson

Subject: RE: Help: We Never Mention Aunt Clara
From: Bill D
Date: 20 Dec 00 - 04:46 PM

well, in Wash DC, there is a little group that plays 'mostly' informally who do the song...and several years ago they performed it at some retirement home. After the song was done, one elderly gentleman stood up and claimed HE wrote it! I will see if I can get more info..(that is who it was, and whether they thought he sounded sincere and such..verification of these things is not always easy)

Subject: RE: Help: We Never Mention Aunt Clara
From: NightWing
Date: 20 Dec 00 - 04:48 PM

And for anyone who HASN'T heard it -- like me until a few minutes ago -- it's right here

funny!

BB,
NightWing

Subject: RE: Help: We Never Mention Aunt Clara
From: Susanne (skw)
Date: 20 Dec 00 - 05:40 PM

There was another thread on it some time ago: Aunt Clara / Mary Alice Jones. I'd love it if we got some more info still!

Subject: RE: Help: We Never Mention Aunt Clara
From: Catrin
Date: 20 Dec 00 - 05:46 PM

I sing it too - Manchester UK - got it from a local singer called 'Mal Waite' That is to say, I saw her perform, bought a tape and learnt the words from the tape. I have absolutely no idea where it cam from though....

Subject: RE: Help: We Never Mention Aunt Clara
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 21 Dec 00 - 12:18 AM

Dunno about the source, though Ed Cray noted that Supreme Court Judge Warren knew it. I learned it in 1947, and it helped pay my way through college; I've been singing it ever since. Can't be much older than the late 1920's, though, based on automotive references.

Subject: We Never Mention Aunt Clara
From: musicmick
Date: 22 Feb 02 - 05:14 PM

Some years ago, at the Washington Getaway, I heard a wonderful song, the refrain of which was,

We never mention Aunt Clara, Her picture is turned to the wall. Though she lives on the French Riviera, Mother says she is dead to us all.

Does anyone know this song or songs like it? In today's permissive atmosphere, subtlty is deemed passe, but there was a charm about suggestive sexuality in song lyrics, and a witty approach to writing that is not possible in a language that is so fraught with scatology.

Subject: RE: We Never Mention Aunt Clara
From: catspaw49
Date: 22 Feb 02 - 05:20 PM

More than you want to know

Spaw

Subject: RE: We Never Mention Aunt Clara
From: SharonA
Date: 22 Feb 02 - 05:24 PM

Also in the Digital Tradition: WE NEVER MENTION AUNT CLARA

Subject: RE: We Never Mention Aunt Clara
From: Kenny B (inactive)
Date: 22 Feb 02 - 05:27 PM

See Catspaw49's thread for background and here is a link for the words in the DT ;.) WE NEVER MENTION AUNT CLARA (Click here)
TTFNKenny B

Subject: RE: We Never Mention Aunt Clara
From: Kenny B (inactive)
Date: 22 Feb 02 - 05:28 PM

All in 7 Munutes ;>)

Subject: RE: We Never Mention Aunt Clara
From: SharonA
Date: 22 Feb 02 - 05:29 PM

Reminds me of the Lou and Peter Berryman song, "We Don't Talk About That!" Can't find lyrics on the net right now, but the CD of the same title is available here: Berryman Boutique (stuff for sale)

Subject: RE: We Never Mention Aunt Clara
From: SINSULL
Date: 22 Feb 02 - 05:29 PM

BatGoddess does this justice with all the melodrama and humor it deserves. Wonderful stuff.

Subject: RE: We Never Mention Aunt Clara
From: Kenny B (inactive)
Date: 22 Feb 02 - 05:46 PM

Sory my link doesn't work - Sharon A's does. PPS Hamish Imlach does a nice homely version of it on his CD 'The More the Merrier'
Back to sleep now Kenny B

Subject: RE: We Never Mention Aunt Clara
From: SharonA
Date: 22 Feb 02 - 05:51 PM

7 minutes... Must be a slow day... *G*

Subject: Lyr Add: WE NEVER MENTION AUNT CLARA
From: catspaw49
Date: 22 Feb 02 - 06:16 PM

One of the problems as we change through varying things at both the 'Cat and the DT is that there are blind errors in old threads. The original thread I linked had several links to the DT, but now they are all out of service......That's why I occasionally post the lyrics to a song already in the DT here on a thread. That way a thread link will always have all the info requested. In this case.....
^^^
WE NEVER MENTION AUNT CLARA

She used to sing hymns in the old village choir
She taught at the Sunday-school class,
At playing the organ she never would tire
Those dear days are over, alas.

In church at the organ she'd practice each day
While the minister pumped up and down.
His wife caught him pumping the organ one day
And that's why aunt Clara left town.

With presents he tempted and lured her to sin
Her innocent virtue to smirch,
But her honor was strong and she never gave in
Till he gave her the deed to the church.

Cho.
We never mention aunt Clara;
Her picture is turned to the wall.
Though she lives on the French Riviera
Mother says she is dead to us all.

They said that she'd toil by night and by day
She'd have to scrub floors for her bread,
But inside of a week she discovered a way
To earn her board lying in bed.

They told her the wages of sinners was death.
To this my aunt Clara just said
That she'd just as soon die with champagne on her breath,
And pink satin sheets on her bed.

They said no one cared if she'd ever come back
When she left us her fortune to seek
But the boys in the firehouse painted it black
And the ball team wore mourning that week.

The said that no man would make her his bride
They prophesied children of shame
But she's married three earls and a baron besides
And she hasn't a child to her name.

They said that Hellfire would punish her sin
She'd burn for her carryings-on
But just at the moment she's toasting her skin
On the beaches of Dover and Cannes.

They said that to garments of sackcloth she'd sink
With ashes to cover her head.
But just at the moment it's ermine and mink
And a diamond tiara instead.

They say that she's sunk in the muck and the mud
But the papers last week showed a snap
Of aunt Clara, at Nice, with a prince of the blood
And a bishop asleep on her lap.

The best things in life always go to the pure
The Sunday school lessons all teach
But I wonder when I see the rotogravure
Of her eighty room shack at the beach.

They say that she's sunken, they say that she fell
From the narrow and virtuous path,
But her French formal gardens are sunken as well
And so is her pink marble bath.

My poor mother's life has been pious and meek
She drives in a second-hand Ford.
Aunt Clara received, for her birthday, last week
A Rolls-Royce, a Stutz and a Cord.

My mother does all of her housework alone
She has to scrub clothes for her board
It strikes me that virtue's not only its own,
But also its only reward.
final cho.
So we never mention aunt Clara,
But I think that when I grow up tall
I shall live on the French Riviera
And let mother turn me to the wall.

Spaw

Subject: RE: We Never Mention Aunt Clara
From: musicmick
Date: 23 Feb 02 - 01:02 AM

I cannot thank you all, enough.Your help and knowlege emboldens me to request help with the words of a more obscure ditty called "It Nearly Broke the Family's Heart When Lady Jane Became a Tart". I remember the first and last verses but I'm drawing a blank on the middle.

It nearly broke the family's heart,
When Lady Jane became a tart.
But blood is blood and race is race,
And, so, to save the family face,
Her father bought her an exclusive beat,
On the shady side of Jarmin St.

something, something, something something.....

No more, it struck the family's fancy,
When Lord Kilbride became a nancy,
And so, in order to protect him,
They hung this sign upon his rectum,
"Beware, all ye who travel steerage,
This passage is reserved for peerage."

Subject: Lyr Add: WHEN LADY JANE BECAME A TART
From: catspaw49
Date: 23 Feb 02 - 01:51 AM

You need to read up on using the Search functions....It's in the DT musicmic. Check the FAQ and try the Supersearch...Works like a champ!!
^^^
WHEN LADY JANE BECAME A TART

It fairly broke the family's heart,
When Lady Jane became a tart,
But blood is blood and race is race,
And so to save the family face,
They bought her an expensive flat,
With "Welcome" written on the mat.

It was not long ere Lady Jane,
Brought her patrician charms to fame,
A clientele of sahibs pukka,
Who regularly came to fuck 'er,
And it was whispered without malice,
She had a client from the Palace.

No one could nestle in her charms,
Unless he wore ancestral arms,
No one to her could gain an entry,
Unless he were of the landed gentry,
And so before her sun had set,
She'd worked her way through Debrett.

When Lady Anne became a whore,
It grieved the family even more,
But they felt they couldn't do the same,
As they had done for Lady Jane,
So they bought her an exclusive beat,
On the shady side of Jermyn Street.

When Lord St. Clancy became a nancy,
It did not please the family's fancy,
And so in order to protect him,
They did inscribe upon his rectum,
"All commoners must now drive steerage,
This fucking hole is reserved for peerage."

Spaw

Subject: RE: We Never Mention Aunt Clara
From: Dave Bryant
Date: 23 Feb 02 - 05:18 AM

I think that you'll find that the line:

"On the beaches of Dover and Cannes."

Should be:

"On the beaches of DEAUVILLE and Cannes."

I couldn't imagine a lady of her refinement really wanting to sunbathe (supposing that she could find any sun) on DOVER Beach.

Subject: RE: We Never Mention Aunt Clara
From: Haruo
Date: 23 Feb 02 - 05:34 AM

But it's simply not true. We mentioned her all the time when I was a kid; still would, but she's dead and nil nisi and all that you know. (tic)

Liland

Subject: RE: We Never Mention Aunt Clara
From: Bat Goddess
Date: 23 Feb 02 - 09:14 AM

I probably mentioned this in one of the other threads on the subject, but I learned the song almost 20 years ago from Bess Foulke, currently of Seattle. She learned it back in college in the '40s from her room mate's father. It's rather become my themesong (and is sometimes accompanied by the Claranettes with Slinkies). I sing it in clumps of 2 verses and a chorus with about 4 of the verses above omitted. (Damn, it's difficult to add verses after you've learned an effective version of something!)

Over the years of performing it at The Press Room, I've had two people come up to me about the song. One learned a very much shortened version from his father and another fellow in port off a cable ship was practically in tears when he told me he'd not heard the song since his mother sang it to him.

I've just been asked to sing it in a show in Dover, NH on March 23 -- but not in the Irish wake section of the show. ;-)

Linn

Subject: RE: We Never Mention Aunt Clara
From: Manitas_at_home
Date: 23 Feb 02 - 09:32 AM

Does anyone know anything about the tune? I have a Kepa Junkera album (the Basque accordion player)called Bilbao that has a track that sounds a lot like "Aunt Clara" except it's sung in something that sounds like Afrikaans or Vlaams. The CD liner notes are in Spanish and Basque and I can't make head or tail of them.

Subject: RE: We Never Mention Aunt Clara
From: Bat Goddess
Date: 23 Feb 02 - 11:07 AM

I just did a quick Google search and discovered at http://www.sherlockian.net/world/irene.html (sorry -- I WILL take the time to learn how to do blue clickies one of these days) that "Another popular tradition is that Irene Adler was in reality the "Aunt Clara" who figures in the 1920s song "We Never Mention Aunt Clara", as sung to the Baker Street Irregulars by Jim Montgomery. It's rather fun to think so. "

I don't think I'd run into that particular piece of information before. and it links to Mudcat/DigiTrad for the words, too.

Linn

Subject: RE: We Never Mention Aunt Clara
From: Susan of DT
Date: 23 Feb 02 - 02:11 PM

(dick greenhaus here)

Hi- Worked my way through college in part some 50 years ago singing this one. It is "Deauville"--it's been corrected in the forthcoming edition.

Subject: RE: We Never Mention Aunt Clara
From: musicmick
Date: 25 Feb 02 - 07:46 PM

If I haven;t expressed my undying gratitude to you guys and the entire Mudcat concept, I do so, now. I am a fumbling idiot on the computer and you folks have made my life easy. I promise a plethora of favorable reviews in response. Mike Miller

Subject: RE: We Never Mention Aunt Clara
From: SharonA
Date: 26 Feb 02 - 11:53 AM

Ooh! Favorable reviews! Guess it's time to renew my membership to PFS so I can read the newsletter! :^)

Subject: RE: We Never Mention Aunt Clara
From: katlaughing
Date: 27 Feb 02 - 12:20 AM

Manitas, I can send you a midi of the the tune if you PM me your email. I think I have it, but just in case. LtS has heard me sing it in PalTalk, I think. I learned it in HearMe from IvanB who does a fabulous rendition of it. It sure is a fun one to "camp" up!

kat

Subject: RE: We Never Mention Aunt Clara
From: IvanB
Date: 27 Feb 02 - 12:46 AM

Actually, kat, the tune is in the DT. That's where I got both the words and the tune.

Subject: RE: We Never Mention Aunt Clara
From: Manitas_at_home
Date: 27 Feb 02 - 02:07 AM

KAt,

Thanks, I'd already found the tune in the DT. I'll try to play them back to back tonight and see if I can find out any more

Subject: RE: We Never Mention Aunt Clara
From: GUEST,MC Fat
Date: 27 Feb 02 - 05:05 AM

Our auld mate Edna 'Superstar' Baggley does a superb version of this

Subject: RE: We Never Mention Aunt Clara
From: Bat Goddess
Date: 27 Feb 02 - 09:24 AM

One night at The Press Room I was (sponaneously) backed up by the "Clara-nettes" singing the chorus and accompanying me with Slinkies (which I had never considered to be a musical instrument before).

Linn

Subject: RE: We Never Mention Aunt Clara
From: Bat Goddess
Date: 27 Feb 02 - 09:28 AM

By the way, the tune I learned (and sing) is slightly different than that in the DT. Maybe I can talk Jeri into doing a MIDI of it.

Linn

Subject: RE: We Never Mention Aunt Clara
From: katlaughing
Date: 27 Feb 02 - 11:08 AM

Kewl, Manitas and Ivan, thanks! Ivan, nice folk process, no? DT>Ivan>Kat...:-)

BatGawdessdarlin'...are they all named "Clare?" Slinkies must've added a, um...er, a lovely metallicatouch! **BG**

Subject: RE: We Never Mention Aunt Clara
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 27 Feb 02 - 12:56 PM

As a point of possible interest, the song that Aunt Clara is based on is also in DT. Try a search for [toward the wall]. A fine piece of Victorian schmaltz.

Subject: RE: We Never Mention Aunt Clara
From: Manitas_at_home
Date: 27 Feb 02 - 03:58 PM

Well I listened to the two back to back and I 'm pretty sure they're the same allowing for the way the words twist the tune. I don't think convergent evolution could produce the same result.

The song appears to be in Basque and the tune is credited as traditional with lyrics by Bilintx. It is called Loriak Udan and is sung by Benito Lertxundi. THe opening line is "Loriak udan intza bezela maite det dama gazte bat".

Subject: RE: We Never Mention Aunt Clara
From: Mrrzy
Date: 27 Feb 02 - 04:32 PM

Slight thread creep - who nowadays really doesn't mention their unmentionable relatives? We had the great-grandmother who used to take off her artificial leg and whack people with it at the dinner table, the cousin-one-removed/uncle who molested everybody, even Mom when he was a little boy and she was a littler girl... and we have never avoided talking about them... the guy who heard the dog bark in the OJSimpson trial... and his father (the molester again) who was involved in that awful bank scandal in Venezuela and had to flee the country for a while... the uncle who got fired for sleeping with his boss' wife... lots of folks we probably wouldn't talk about if we had any, um, refinement, I guess. But really, do people nowadays still hide their eclectic kin under some veil of silence?

Subject: RE: We Never Mention Aunt Clara
From: Paddy Plastique
Date: 28 Feb 02 - 04:32 AM

More thread creep... Ah, so that explains the name of one of the cocktails in
Russian samizdat novelist, Benjamin Erofeev's 'Moscow To The End of The Line', in which
the narrator makes up a lovely tipple containing Vodka, Red Wine and Hair lacquer called
'Aunt Clara's Kiss'. A good book to look up for all you clean-living 'catters
Name choice possibly down to the English translators rather than 'Benny' himself

Subject: RE: We Never Mention Aunt Clara
From: Charley Noble
Date: 28 Feb 02 - 03:18 PM

Mrrzy - The only ones we don't talk about in my family are the boring ones. You should write a song about your great grandmother. "Eat them Brussel sprouts, child! You won't, huh. Well, take this, and this!"

We had a grandfather (mother's father) who would admonish everyone to chew each bite 30 times, and then start helping himself to any plate within his amazing reach if you didn't finish eating as swiftly as he did. Grandmother used to befriend his ex-mistresses, invite them over to tea for years which Grandfather thought was rather gauche.

Subject: RE: We Never Mention Aunt Clara
From: Joe_F
Date: 28 Feb 02 - 03:42 PM

Segue to "We Don't Talk about That" by the Berrymans.

Subject: RE: We Never Mention Aunt Clara
From: musicmick
Date: 01 Mar 02 - 02:07 AM

Theses funny family favorites remind me of that takeoff of Marching Through Georgia that goes....

Hoorah, hoorah, my father's gonna get shot/ Hoorah, hoorah, that good-for- nothing sot/ 'cause he was very mean to me when I was just a tot/ Hoorah,hoorah, hoorah, they're shooting father.

Dont cry lady, I'll buy your stinking flowers/ Dont cry, lady, your pencils, too/ Dont cry, lady, take off those dark sunglasses/ Hello, mother, I knew it was you.

Subject: RE: We Never Mention Aunt Clara
From: Charley Noble
Date: 02 Mar 02 - 09:52 AM

Linn (Bat Goddess) did her usual great job of singing "Aunt Clara" at the Press Room gathering last night; I saw tears in the eyes of several bar patrons. I think I've finally got the tune in my head.

Subject: RE: We Never Mention Aunt Clara
From: Bat Goddess
Date: 02 Mar 02 - 01:16 PM

Yeah, but the person who had asked me to sing "Aunt Clara" in her 4th annual post-St. Patrick's Day show to benefit a local Catholic academy, chickened out and last night asked me to sing "Lovely Agnes" instead. Now there's a switch! She really had her heart set on "Aunt Clara" but ran into some static and was afraid of potential problems with the material being considered, ah, "inappropriate" for a school benefit production. (The two part show features an Irish wake and a picnic at Squam Point; she wanted the song at the picnic.)

Not a problem, of course, (what about "She's More to be Pitied Than Censured" which is also in my repertoire? -- I told her she should just have explained that Aunt Clara was a Protestant girl being a bad example. ;-)

Linn

Subject: RE: We Never Mention Aunt Clara
From: GUEST,dan
Date: 30 Jul 03 - 03:23 PM

hi all...
in answer to someone's query...melody for "Aunt Clara" is based upon old irish tune called the "mush,mush song"...music for which is in the scottish students songbook of 1895...also "mush,mush song" is featured in the well known Barry Fitzgerald, John Wayne, Maureen O'Hara and Victor McLaghlan (spelling?)film "The Quiet Man" during one of the furniture moving sequences....

Subject: RE: We Never Mention Aunt Clara
From: curmudgeon
Date: 30 Jul 03 - 04:39 PM

The two tunes, while not an exact match, are certainly incestuously related. In fact, when I first started accompanying Linn (Bat Goddess) on this, I had to be careful not to slip during the intro.

Mush mush ri toorilaye addy,
Mush mush ri toorilaye ay.
There was ne'er a gossoon in the village
Dared tread on the tail of me coat.

Subject: RE: We Never Mention Aunt Clara
From: GUEST,dan
Date: 21 Aug 03 - 10:19 AM

hi curmudgeon

is Linn (Bat Goddess) still doing aunt clara at press room???
would love to hear it...did you accompany on the piano????

have done the same in honor of the master ...one sherlock holmes...

just to add...aunt clara has made it round the world...a group of chicago legal eagles also considers it one of their favorites as have certain quarters in the U.S.Navy in the past....

some groups consider it a hymn

Subject: RE: We Never Mention Aunt Clara
From:
Date: 01 Feb 04 - 05:50 AM

The way I remember one verse,it went

"Mama's a good woman, pious and meek,
She drives a second-hand car.
But just for her birthday, Aunt Clara, last week,
Got a mink-upholstered Jaguar!"

Does anybody remember the "I was not a Nazi polka?" "Ve all thought that Dachau was just a nice resort, sing the I was not a Nazy Polka!"

Subject: RE: We Never Mention Aunt Clara
From: Snuffy
Date: 01 Feb 04 - 06:20 PM

Look a fair way down (16 Feb 03) this thread for I was not a Nazi polka

Subject: RE: We Never Mention Aunt Clara
From: Bat Goddess
Date: 02 Feb 04 - 05:45 PM

Arghh! How did I miss that post from last August? (Prolly cuz I was too busy working to spend much time at Mudcat.) And what's the chance of "Guest, dan" checking in again?

Yes, Guest, dan, I'm still doing "Aunt Clara" more or less regularly at The Press Room; have been for 20 years -- and who are you and when did you hear me?

Linn

Subject: RE: We Never Mention Aunt Clara
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 02 Feb 04 - 06:38 PM

One thing about Clara--she has staying power. I've been doing it since 1948, and it shows no sign of waakening.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: We Never Mention Aunt Clara
From: GUEST
Date: 30 Jan 11 - 06:23 PM

Thats a long time is there a pension involved