Lyr Req: Things at Home - Nurse's Song??

Subject: Lyr Req: Things at Home - Nurse's Song??
From: Joe Offer
Date: 01 Feb 05 - 05:30 AM

This one stumped me.Our Pastor Emeritus is an 80-something-yr-old Irishman, and we were talking songs last night.
He's looking for a song that he says is a nurses' song, American in origin, sung to the tune of "Rock of Ages."

All he can remember of the song is this:

Things at home are sad and dreary
Things at home of gloom....

That's all - can anybody help?
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Things at Home - Nurse's Song??
From: Joe Offer
Date: 01 Feb 05 - 07:56 PM

Gee, don't tell me I have to tell the Padre we don't have an answer for this one...
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Things at Home - Nurse's Song??
From: Sorcha
Date: 01 Feb 05 - 10:29 PM

Are we sure it's not Old folks at home? And he's confused? I found zilch.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Things at Home - Nurse's Song??
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 02 Feb 05 - 12:13 AM

I think Rousseau's litle verse was enlarged into a song by someone-

Day's of absence, sad and weary,
Chothed in sorrow's dark array
Days of absence, I am weary:
She I love is far away.
(This from Bartlett's Quotations; from "Day of Absence")

No luck finding it.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Things at Home - Nurse's Song??
From: masato sakurai
Date: 02 Feb 05 - 02:10 AM

The tune to "Days of Absence" is "Rousseau's Dream," which is known as "Go Tell Aunt Rhody." Four editions are at the Levy Collection.

Title: Absence. (Click here)
Composer, Lyricist, Arranger: Air Rousseau's Dream. Arranged By C. Meineke.
Publication: Baltimore: John Cole, n.d..
Form of Composition: strophic with chorus
Instrumentation: piano and voice
First Line: Days of absence, sad and dreary, Cloth'd in sorrows dark array
Subject: Courtship & love
Subject: Depression
Call No.: Box: 043 Item: 001

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Things at Home - Nurse's Song??
From: Joe Offer
Date: 02 Feb 05 - 02:16 AM

I got the impression this is a funny parody. I don't think we've found it yet.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Things at Home - Nurse's Song??
From: Charmion
Date: 02 Feb 05 - 03:58 PM

The version I remember, sung to the hymn tune known to everyone else as "Deutschland uber alles", goes like this:

Things at home are sad and dreary
It's as dismal as the tomb
Father has a touch of syphilis
Mother has a fallen womb
Sister Sue has just aborted
For the fortieth consecutive time
Brother Tom has been deported
For a homosexual crime!

The rest has slipped the leash of memory; apart from this stanza, I can recall only a line about "cracking ice for Grandma's piles".

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Things at Home - Nurse's Song??
From: Joe Offer
Date: 02 Feb 05 - 06:06 PM

Charmion, I think you've got it! Knowing this priest, it's the kind of song that would catch his attention. He has a fascinating sense of humor.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Things at Home - Nurse's Song??
From: masato sakurai
Date: 02 Feb 05 - 06:25 PM

From here:

The Deutschland-Lied is brilliant. "Die Wacht am Rhein", too, but the Deutschland-Lied, the "Deutschland uber Alles" is great. Now I admit to a certain prejudice here. The music is of course not German-German, but rather Haydn's Kaiserlied, the "Gott Erhalte Franz der Kaiser" of the Habsburg Monarchy. How can one not like an anthem that calls up the Monarchy? I hear it and I can see myself riding with my Kurassier squadron under the black-and-yellow double eagle down the Ringstrasse...

[Yes, I do know the, ummm, *other* version sung at King's College: "Ours is not a happy household/ No one laughs or ever smiles..." That version is great for singing after a few rounds of drinks, and does get to the clever parts, all sung to the Deutschland-Lied: "Sister Sue has just aborted/For the twenty-second time./Uncle Fred has been deported/For a most unusual crime..." The full version is in one of John Masters'wartime memoirs.]

Subject: Lyr Add: LIFE PRESENTS A DISMAL PICTURE
From: masato sakurai
Date: 02 Feb 05 - 06:57 PM

From Ed Cray's The Erotic Muse, 2nd ed.:

Life Presents a Dismal Picture

...It is generally sung to the tune of "Hark, the Herald Angels Sing"):


      [A]
Life presents a dismal picture.
Life is full of tears and gloom.
Father has a penile stricture.
Mother has a fallen womb.
In the corner sits my sister,
Never laughs and never smiles.
What a dismal occupation:
Cracking ice for father's piles.

Brother Bill has been deported
For a homosexual crime.
Sister Sue has been aborted
For the sixth or seventh time.
Little Luke is slowly dying
For he's always having fits.
Everytime he laughs, he vomits;
Every time he farts, he shits.

    [B]
Life presents a dismal picture.
Dark and dreary as the tomb
Father's got an anal stricture.
Mother's got a fallen womb.

Sister Sue has been aborted
For the forty-second time.
Brother Bill has been deported
For a homosexual crime.

Nurse has chronic menstruation
Never laughs and never smiles.
Mine's a dismal occupation:
Cracking ice for grandpa's piles.

In a small brown paper parcel,
Wrapped in a mysterious way,
Is an imitation rectrum,
Granddad uses twice a day.

Joe, the postman, called this morning,
Stuck his cock through the door.
We could not, despite endearment,
Get it out till half-past four.

Even now the baby's started
Having epileptic fits.
Every time it coughs it spews.
Every time it farts it shits.

Yet we are not broken-hearted,
Neither are we up the spout:
Aunty Mabel has just farted,
Blown her cunt hole inside out.

Legman terms this a recitation in his Horn Book (p. 422). It has, however, acquired various melodies to which it may be sung, and portions of it turn up in other bawdy, quatrain ballads.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Things at Home - Nurse's Song??
From: Snuffy
Date: 02 Feb 05 - 07:38 PM

I know it to the tune of What a Friend We Have In Jesus