Songs You Learned in the Service?

Subject: RE: Songs You Learned in the Service?
From: Rapparee
Date: 06 Mar 05 - 08:24 PM

Ft. Leonard Wood, 1963:

Roll Me Over

Oh the count is up to one
And the fun has just begun,

Chorus:
Roll me over lay me down and do it again,
Roll me over in the clover
Roll me over lay me down and do it again.

Oh the count is up to to two
And my hand is on her shoe

Oh the count is up to three
And my hand is on her knee

Oh the count is up to four
And I'm knockin' at the door

Oh the count is up to five
And my dick just took a dive

Oh the count is up to six
And I'm in a helluva a fix

Oh the count is up to seven
And I think that I'm in heaven

Oh the count is up to eight
And the doctor's at the gate

Oh the count is up to nine
And the twins are doin' fine

Oh the count is up to ten
And I'd like to do it again....

Subject: RE: Songs You Learned in the Service?
From: Rapparee
Date: 06 Mar 05 - 08:31 PM

Same time, same place:

Around her neck she wore a yellow ribbon
She wore it in the springtime and in the month of May
And if you ask her why the hell she wore it,
She wore it for her trooper who was far, far away.

Chorus

Far away, far away, she wore it for her trooper who was far far away.

Around the block she pushed a baby carriage
She pushed it in the springtime and in the month of May
And if you asked her why the hell she pushed it
She pushed it for her troop who was far, far away.

Behind the door her father kept a shotgun
He kept it in the springtime and in the month of May
And if you asked him why the hell he kept it
He kept it for her trooper who was far far away.

Subject: RE: Songs You Learned in the Service?
From: GUEST,Allan S.
Date: 13 Mar 05 - 01:15 PM

Sorry for the delay
Go to immortalia.com That is John Mehlberg's web site for bawdy ballads. on the left side of the screen there is a list of songs. Scroll down to Mother Fu----s Ball and it is there

Subject: RE: Songs You Learned in the Service?
From: Tannywheeler
Date: 14 Mar 05 - 01:05 AM

Not sure I noted all the songs. My stepdad was in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. He taught us all a basic complaint song:
^^^
1)The biscuits in the army
They say are mighty fine,
But one rolled off the table
And killed a pal of mine.
    (cho)OOOOh, I don't want no more of army life.
          Gee, but I want to go home.
2)The coffee in the army
They say is mighty fine.
It's good for cuts and bruises
And tastes like iodine.
       (cho)
3)The chicken in the army
They say is mighty fine,
But one jumped off the table
And started marking time.
       (cho)
4)The trousers in the army
They say are mighty fine.
Me and my buddy
Can both fit into mine.
       (cho)

Don't remember other verses now, but I think there were a few more. We were about 6yrs old (late 1940s/early '50s) when we learned this one. Looks like there wouldn't have been many he could have taught us.               Tw

Subject: RE: Songs You Learned in the Service?
From: GUEST,Lighter at work
Date: 14 Mar 05 - 07:39 AM

Tannywheeler, I associate that song with WWII. Could that be when your stepdad learned it?

Subject: RE: Songs You Learned in the Service?
From: GUEST,ALLAN S.
Date: 14 Mar 05 - 09:45 AM

I sang it in basic training at fort Dix 1953 when I had my guitar there. Also sang it at boy scout camp.

Subject: RE: Songs You Learned in the Service?
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 14 Mar 05 - 12:17 PM

Thank you, Rapaire, for the count. I've heard it sung by GIs in the seventies (starting: and this is number ...) and forgot a lot in the years to follow. I tried to find the lyrics, and now I have them.

Wilfried (German Federal Army, rtd)

Subject: RE: Songs You Learned in the Service?
From: Tannywheeler
Date: 14 Mar 05 - 12:47 PM

Lighter, he didn't talk about WWII. He talked about Spain. It was, I think, part of the same fight. Personal Opinion.          Tw

Subject: RE: Songs You Learned in the Service?
From: GUEST,cadet
Date: 29 Aug 06 - 11:18 PM

i learned one a couple in basic training and i wasn't in service im a cadet in Civil Air Patrol and AFJROTC

glory, glory what a heluva way to die with a rifle on your back as your fallin throgh the sky
glory glory what a helluva way ta die
cuz i aint gonna jump no more......


and


right o left, right o left
steppin out on my left
and it wont be long till im marching back home
mama mama dont you cry, airborn rangers neva die
and it wont be long till im marching back home

Subject: RE: Songs You Learned in the Service?
From: The Walrus
Date: 30 Aug 06 - 03:37 AM

I was never in the Forces, my nearest experience was Army Cadet Force (An Army-run youth organisation, a sort of armed Boy Scouts run on military lines).
We had songs, often handed down from older members or even gleaned from servicemen and adapted.
We had one (1960s/70s) which I, seem to recall as being based on a National Service song "Ginger, You're Barmy" (1950s). Basically the song was the same as one wehich I later, learned from my late Father (pre-WW2 'Militia-man'*). Looking at the lyrics at a later date, it struck me that the song was older than his service and had, in turn, been adapted from a song of Great War vintage (That should fit it in here ;-) )

The bits of My Father's song (that I cam remember) are as follows:

Belisha's Army

Don't want to join,
Don't want to join
Don't want to join Belisha's Army
Up at six o'clock,
Running 'round the block
Fucking great icicles, hanging off your cock

Don't want to join,
Don't want to join
Don't want to join Belisha's Army
Sitting on the grass
Polishing up your brass
Bloody great spiders crawling up your arse

Don't want to join,
Don't want to join
Don't want to join Belisha's Army
Five bob+ a week,
Sod-all to eat
Bloody great blisters hanging off your feet

Don't want to join,
Don't want to join
Don't want to join Belisha's Army
If it wasn't for the war
We'd have fucked-off long before
Hoare-Belisha# - You're barmy!

The song is incomplete - perhaps someone out there has more?

Any use?

W


* Pre WW2 Conscript - Conscripted under the Militia Act, as in interim measure while the National Service Act (1939) was in the House.
+ Five-bob = 25 pence for those too young to remember £.s.d
# Hoare-Belisha was the Ministrer of War in 1939 (also the man who gave us the Belisha beacon at 'zebra' crossings).

Subject: RE: Songs You Learned in the Service?
From: GUEST,commosoldier
Date: 10 Sep 08 - 12:50 AM

I remember this one. It brings back so many memories being up at o'dark hundred have to do PT:

Up in the morning-before day
I dont like it- no way
I eat my breakfast too damn soon
Wanna go home-by noon
I went to the mess sargeant on my knees
"mess sargeant, mess sargeant feed me please"
The mess sargent said with a big ole grim
If you wanna be (insert branch) "commo"-you gotta be thin
Cause I'm A-I RB- OR- NE. Say yeah! Hell yeah! Say yeah!
Hell yeah! Do you feel like I feel right now?
Mo-mo-mo-mo-mo-mo-motivated!! A Di-di-di-di-di-dedicated!
Rock-Steady! Wanna be-combat ready now! Rock-Steady! Roll-easy!
Hey, hey! Hey hey now! To the beat now!
I can run to the sun now-just for fun now
Here we go-here we go now. come on-now.....

Subject: RE: Songs You Learned in the Service?
From: GUEST
Date: 04 Dec 08 - 07:00 PM

yo mama's got a big ass dick
(ding dong)-platoon
i seen it when she takin a shit
(ding dong)
she slapped it on the side of the bowl
(ding dong)
water splashed out of the hole
(ding dong)
that water got on my shoes
(ding dong)
i told her these were fuckin new
(ding dong)
she wiped them with the paper she had
(ding dong)
guess what?yo mama is really a man

Subject: RE: Songs You Learned in the Service?
From: GUEST,Pittielynn
Date: 07 Apr 09 - 10:47 PM

This one always made me laugh more than anything else.

A little birdie in a tree
Said something very nice to me
Said Alpha coy is number one
And beating them just cant be done

A little louder
A little faster
And much, much better

A little birdie in a tree
Said something very mean to me
Said Bravo coy is number one
And beating them just can't be done

A little louder
A little faster
And much, much better

So I shot that birdie in the head
Now that little birdies dead
Moral of the story will be
Don't question Alpha's superiority

Subject: RE: Songs You Learned in the Service?
From: Claymore
Date: 08 Apr 09 - 03:15 AM

As I mentioned in a similar thread several years ago, I heard a song in the 'Nam that was entitled (to the best of my memory) The Night we Gunned Down Santa Claus. As I recall he wasn't squawking on his IFF.

The other had a verse that went:

You come into the room,
Talking that talk
But I can tell what you've been doing,
By the way you walk...

Subject: RE: Songs You Learned in the Service?
From: GUEST,TJ in San Diego
Date: 08 Apr 09 - 11:36 AM

Your spats are loose,
Your belt is tight,
Your balls are swingin'
From left to right!
Sound Off!!

Between Boy Scouts, summers as a forest firefighter and basic training, I heard several of the above ditties. I didn't commit a lot of them to memory since the only place you could sing them without penalty was in the barracks.

Bob, I do have fond memories of my time in your current back yard, at Ft. Lewis, circa 1961-62. I, too, have often wondered what became of some of my army buddies. In those days, when the draft grabbed a lot of college grads, it was quite a diverse and fairly well-educated group with whom I served. With all the reserve and National Guard call-ups that occurred during the "Berlin Crisis," we also wound up with quite a list of actors, pro athletes, professional ice skaters and other notables for several months. Ray Nitschke, Tony Kubek, Elgin Baylor and Mel Blanc's son, Noel, to mention a few. And, we had the Fair in Seattle and a lot of visiting musicians.

One Ohio State grad summed up his feelings when we saw him off to civilian life at SeaTac airport: "Thanks for the memories. Now, I hope I never have to see you ugly green sonsabitches again!" There's probably a song in there somewhere.

Subject: RE: Songs You Learned in the Service?
From: Ratdog
Date: 29 May 09 - 06:19 AM

(AIT Cav Scout, Ft Knox, KY 1977) Anyone here remember a cadence that involved a little song bird flying in the window so you smash it's skull in with your rifle butt? After 30 some years I can't remember the lyrics to that one, or one that involved a kotex and possibly a Jody boy.

Guess I've lost some brain cells between here and there, but no doubt I'd recognise 'em if I saw the words.

Easy to remember most of them though, like: Hey hey Captain Jack..meet me down by the RR track..with a bottle in your hand..I'm going to be a drinkin man.. and .. I don't want to be an Airborne Ranger.. I want a life of death and danger..pick up your weapon and follow me..I am the cav-al-ry.. couldn't forget those if I tried.

But for some reason the crushing the little bird and the kotex song have gotten lost from my memory, I was thinking they were pretty good.

Subject: RE: Songs You Learned in the Service?
From: GUEST,guest
Date: 03 Jul 09 - 09:06 PM

A well-known Australian military song is the words assigned to the regimental march of the 3rd Battalion, The Royal Australian Regiment (3RAR) - "Our Director". Apparently, when heard by an American correspondent in Vietnam, his reaction was "That's the first time I've heard an Army unit advocating 'make love, not war'."

We're a pack of bastards,
Bastards are we.
We're from Australia,
The a***hole of the world (and all the universe).
We're a pack of bastards,
Bastards are we.
We'd rather f**k than fight for liberty!

Subject: RE: Songs You Learned in the Service?
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 03 Jul 09 - 10:47 PM

Follow follow follow me mg

Subject: RE: Songs You Learned in the Service?
From: GUEST,Bill
Date: 28 Oct 09 - 12:35 PM

To Rapaire who shared the ditty from 1963's Fort Leonard Wood. A big thank you from a guy who also went to basic in '63 at Leonard Wood and learned the same song but could never remember the lyrics. I was Echo-2-2 in July and August and part of September.

I do, however, remember every lyric to a song written by a chopper pilot in Nam. Heard it in either '65 or '66, but it's pretty raunchy. Wouldn't want to offend.

Bill

Subject: RE: Songs You Learned in the Service?
From: kendall
Date: 28 Oct 09 - 02:04 PM

None clean enough to post here.

Subject: RE: Songs You Learned in the Service?
From: GUEST
Date: 21 Mar 10 - 03:20 PM

AirBo.o.o.orn Ranger.er.er.ers
Walkin down the street one day
I met a total stranger
He said he'll make a man of me
If i became an Airborn Ranger
Airbo.o.o.orn Ranger.er.er.ers

Sitin in the Foxhole
thinkin about my wife
up jumped the enemy
so i had to take his life
Airbo.o.o.orn Ranger.er.er.ers

Runnin through the desert
its hot and its dry
I gotta keep on runnin
cuz I dont wanna die
Airborn... Rangers.......

My buddy's in the foxhole
with a bullet in his head
the medic says he's wounded
but I know that he's dead
Airborn.... Rangers....

Subject: RE: Songs You Learned in the Service?
From: kendall
Date: 21 Mar 10 - 08:25 PM

The money in the Coast Guard they say is mighty fine
They pay you $50.00 and take back $49
I dont want no more of Coast Guard life
Oh how I want to go home.

They shoes that they gave us they said were mighty fine
You ask for number 7 they give you number 9

Oh I dont......

The donuts that they fed us they said were mighty fine
Mine rolled off the table and killed a pal of mine

Oh...etc.

The chicken that they fed us they said was mighty fine
Mine jumped off the table and started marking time

Silly crap.

The good one are just too raunchy for posting here.

Subject: RE: Songs You Learned in the Service?
From: Booklynrose
Date: 21 Mar 10 - 10:23 PM

Subject: RE: Songs You Learned in the Service?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 22 Mar 10 - 01:53 AM

I recommend Roy Palmer's What a Lovely War! British Soldiers' Songs from the Boer War to the Present Day (Michael Joseph 1990); much of the contents of which [incl 2 songs I gave him from my 1950s National Service recollections + another I had learned from a friend who had served in WWii], Roy has put into the British Library Archives which can be found at Archival Sound Recordings, URL http://sounds.bl.uk/View

~Michael~

Subject: RE: Songs You Learned in the Service?
From: GUEST,seth in Olympia
Date: 22 Mar 10 - 02:33 AM

I learned "96 tears" and I'll bet if you were near Viet-Nam you did too. And "The Letter" learned 'em well. Heard those songs a lot.

Subject: RE: Richard Suppards
From: GUEST,Nobby 600 Sqdn
Date: 23 Jul 10 - 05:33 AM

It is published in 'History of Biggin Hill" or like title publ 1960'S a hardback blue book.
From memory ; A pious mortal and a wise
Who never cheated or told lies,
Beneath this marble tablet lies
R Suppards

Alas poor Richard's life was ended,
By falling from a beam he'd mended,
And on a fence here he hung suspended.
R Suppards
&c &c.

Subject: RE: Ballad of Richard Suppards
From: GUEST,Nobby 600
Date: 01 Aug 10 - 08:50 AM

I have since found out that the above appears in full in "RAF Biggin Hill" -Graham Wallace Putnam 1957 pages 53 & 54.

Subject: RE: Songs You Learned in the Service?
From: olddude
Date: 01 Aug 10 - 09:18 AM

I wanna be a Navy Seal

Subject: RE: Songs You Learned in the Service?
From: Tradsinger
Date: 01 Aug 10 - 02:49 PM

I think this is a terrific thread and I also consider that bawdy songs is a very under-studied bit of folklore, considering how much it is part of the oral tradition. I was never in the armed forces (too young to have done military service) but we did have a good repertoire in the school CCF (Combined Cadet Force). They included
- Three German Officers crossed the Rhine
- Roll me over in the clover
- There once was a farmer who sat on a rick
- Around her leg she wore a yellow garter
- The Good ship Venus
- The Ball of Inverness
- On Father oh father I have to confess

and several more. I passed on most of these to Ed Cray who put together the wonderful book 'The Erotic Muse'. I was also pleased to see that there was a bawdy songs concert recently in Washington and that it was such as sell-out that they have repeated it!

Tradsinger

Subject: RE: Songs You Learned in the Service?
From: GUEST,meggo141
Date: 13 Sep 10 - 09:43 PM

My mom used to sing little ditties she learned during WWII, and I heard Davy's Dinghy (or "He had the cutest little dinghy in the Navy") a zillion times. (I found the lyrics to that one.) She had another favorite, but I can't remember all the words. Here's what I can recall:

Went downtown like a good girl should, picked up a sailor like I knew I would.
CHO: Listen while I tell you what he done to me.
Went upstairs like a good girl should, he followed me like I knew he would.
CHO

Seems like it had MANY more verses but I can't remember the rest. . . Nor can I recall the tune. Does this sound familiar to anyone?
Thanks!

Subject: RE: Songs You Learned in the Service?
From: Lighter
Date: 13 Sep 10 - 10:32 PM

Here's the 18th Century version:

http://sniff.numachi.com/pages/tiNAVENAVE;ttNAVENAVE;ttKNAVES.html

The song goes back to the 17th.

Subject: RE: Songs You Learned in the Service?
From: frogprince
Date: 13 Sep 10 - 10:35 PM

For all I heard of the Navy having a singing tradition, I encountered very little of it in a four year hitch. On a couple of occasions some of us sat around throwing in verses for "Hey Lottie Lottie". I halfway learned a profoundly raunchy takeoff on "Didn't He Ramble" from an Oscar Brand Record:

We landed on Guam Island, one bright and sunny morn,
And there we met the girl we knew as Miss VD of Guam.

It goes downhill fast from there. I first heard it just before getting orders to eighteen months stationed on Guam. Fortunately or unfortunately, the song says the girl was dead by then.

Subject: RE: Songs You Learned in the Service?
From: Tannywheeler
Date: 14 Sep 10 - 01:16 AM

My stepdad taught me one:
"The coffee in the army they say is mighty fine;
It's good for cuts & bruises, & tastes like iodine.
(ref)OH, I don't want no more of army life--
    Gee, but I want to go home.
The biscuits in the army they say are mighty fine;
One rolled off the table & killed a pal of mine.
(ref)
The chickens in the army they say are mighty fine;
One rolled off the table & started marking time.
(ref)
The pants in the army they say are mighty fine;
Me & my buddy can both fit into mine.
(ref)
Those are all the verses I can remember. He said he learned it while in the service. He was in Spain(the Abraham Lincoln Brigade) & later in the U. S. Army.

Subject: RE: Songs You Learned in the Service?
From: Slag
Date: 14 Sep 10 - 05:41 AM

I just remember a couple of cadence calls from USAF basic and tech school.

Hut Hut Three and a half
I had a date with a Lackland WAF
She was ready
I was willin'
Now I'm taking penicilin

And at tech school Shepard AFB I only remember two lines

You were once my village queen
Now I love my M-16

There was one big long schpiel about Ho-Chi-Minh being a SOB.

As a child my brother (2 years older) learned some WWII ditties, snatches included:

Inky Dinky Parlez Vous

The first marine jumped over the gate, parlez vous
The second marine jumped over the gate, parlez vous
The third marine jumped over the gate
Got shot in the back with a .38
Inky dinky, parlez vous.

Not much of a contribution but it might jog a memory or two.

Subject: RE: Songs You Learned in the Service?
From: GUEST
Date: 27 Dec 10 - 12:55 AM

My Grandma sings one Khaki and Olive Drab... Does anyone know what the major does in that song? She can remember all the others just not the major. She is 93 and it would have been during WWII. It would make her happy to finally remember what the major does.

Subject: req: Khaki and Olive Drab
From: Joe Offer
Date: 27 Dec 10 - 01:25 AM

Hi -
Can you post what you know of "Khaki and Olive Drab"? It will help us find the rest of the song, and will enlighten us who haven't heard it. Thanks.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: Songs You Learned in the Service?
From: GUEST,Richard/SIA
Date: 12 Jun 11 - 01:27 AM

Ha!
That Charlotte the Harlot song got me sent home from grade school back in the early 60's on the first day!
My dad played it a lot, on a 78 party record, I was about seven years old and had no idea what the song was about.

I recognize a couple of the cadence songs here, sung every day by the kids at recess, "coffee taste like iodine", LOL!
We also sang one about Eney Meney Miny Moe, catch a N***** by the toe, if he screams and hollers let him go!
Can't imagine that being tolerated today!
Again, the words had no meaning, it was just a ditty for jump rope.

I doubt kids sing anything with a military history today, just rap crap and mindless junk from the top ten.

Subject: RE: Songs You Learned in the Service?
From: GUEST
Date: 12 Feb 12 - 11:17 PM

Both of my grandfathers fought in world war 2 one of them use to sing a song about a woman pushing a baby carriage down the street, i think maybe it even mentioned it being a sunday afternoon, but I'm not sure, I really want to find out what song it is, if anyone has any clue please coment

Subject: RE: Songs You Learned in the Service?
From: GUEST,Toddbone
Date: 12 Aug 14 - 07:26 PM

My father spent almost 3 years in Europe during WWII, compliments of the US Army. He passed in 1977, but I used to hear him sing bits and pieces of two songs in particular: 1) "A Lunatic's Lullaby" 2) "In Fourteen Hundred and Ninety-Two..."
I'm not sure of the titles or names these songs were known by, but I could provide a few lyrics.
He was in Eng., Fr., Ger., and a half dozen other countries during his tour. Any ideas on these two gems would be great!
Thanks

[e-mail]

Subject: RE: Songs You Learned in the Service?
From: bubblyrat
Date: 13 Aug 14 - 07:46 AM

An engineer told me before he died, uh huh
an engineer told me before he died uh huh
an engineer told before he died,
his wife could not be satisfied, uh huh

So he built a prick of steel uh huh (repeat )
so he built a prick of steel,
and it was driven by a fucking great wheel, uh huh

two brass balls were filled with cream uh huh (repeat)
two brass balls were filled with cream,
and the whole fucking issue was driven by steam uh huh

In and out went the prick of steel uh huh(repeat)
in and out went the prick of steel,
round and round went the fucking great wheel uh huh

"Enough ! Enough ! Enough !" She cried uh huh (repeat )
"Enough ! Enough ! Enough! " she cried ;
"Enough ! Enough! - I'm satisfied ! " uh huh

Now we come to the "biter bit " uh huh (repeat)
now we come to the "biter bit ,
there was no way of stopping it ! uh huh

So she was split from ass to tit uh huh(repeat)
she was split from ass to tit
and the whole fucking issue was covered in shit uh huh

The tune , of course, is "Froggy went a-courting and he did ride uh huh"

Sorry it is a bit vulgar, but that is what we sang in the British Navy !!! (and you DID ask !).

Subject: RE: Songs You Learned in the Service?
From: Lighter
Date: 13 Aug 14 - 08:02 AM

And when did you learn it, Bubbly?

For some reason 'Catters rarely tell us pedants when or where they learned a song.

Subject: RE: Songs You Learned in the Service?
From: GUEST,Guest-Over the bar
Date: 13 Aug 14 - 10:47 AM

The men behind the wire.

Subject: RE: Songs You Learned in the Service?
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 13 Aug 14 - 02:10 PM

It's a hell of a way to die a hell of a way to die it's a hell of a death to jump to death a hell of a way to die.

Subject: RE: Songs You Learned in the Service?
From: GUEST
Date: 05 Apr 18 - 03:53 AM

I only remember snatches of R suppards. There was a pious mortal and a wise.
Now beneath this marble tablet lies.
R.Suppards

Subject: RE: Songs You Learned in the Service?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 05 Apr 18 - 04:31 AM

We had to chant this in basic training while marching at double-time. I hated that.

I wanna be an Airborne Ranger
I wanna live a life of danger
I wanna go to Vietnam
I wanna kill old Charlie Cong.