Funny, Traditional Songs

Subject: Funny, Traditional Songs
From: thespionage
Date: 22 Jun 06 - 01:37 PM

What are some favorite traditional songs with a humorous edge, broadly defined?

Russ

Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 22 Jun 06 - 01:40 PM

The sick note, The moose song, The threshing machine...there's a start. Best wishes, Mike.

Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 22 Jun 06 - 01:50 PM

Soldier Oh Soldier (Will you marry me?)
The Frozen Logger (don't know if that's traditional)
The Swapping Song (Wing Wong Waddle)
Eggs and Marrowbone
Riding Down From Bangor
Blow the Man Down
The Young Man Who Wouldn't Hoe Corn
Three Jolly Rogues of Lynn
Sweet Little Window
Beans, Bacon and Gravy
Kansas Boys
Divil and the Farmer's Wife (The Farmer's Curst Wife)
Jan's Courtship
The German Musicianer
The Grey Mare
Phyllis and Her Mother
Hi Ro Jerum
Jan's Courting

That's a few that come readily to mind from my own repertoire.
Enjoy!

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs
From: Don Firth
Date: 22 Jun 06 - 01:57 PM

My sweetheart's the mule in the mine.
I drive her without reins or lines.
On the bumper I sit
And I chew and I spit
All over my sweetheart's behind.

(Learned from Walt Robertson).

Carl Sandburg has a lot of pretty funny stuff in The American Songbag. The first one that pops to mind is "Horse Named Bill."

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 22 Jun 06 - 02:02 PM

The Sick Note ain't traditional. Pat Cooksey wrote it. Not sure about The Threshing Machine though it doesn't seem to be an Adge Cutler composition (I use the word loosely). As for The Moose Song, I've never heard of it but expect this is a Good Thing.

Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs
From: GUEST,Russ
Date: 22 Jun 06 - 02:15 PM

The Devil and the Farmer's wife/The Farmer's Curst Wife
Eggs and marrowbones
Little Tom Clark

Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs
From: GUEST,Russ
Date: 22 Jun 06 - 02:16 PM

The Darby Ram
Get up and Bar the Door

Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs
From: GUEST,Russ
Date: 22 Jun 06 - 02:21 PM

The Preacher and the Bear
Oh Suzannah

Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 22 Jun 06 - 03:14 PM

Oh, oh! Not Oh, Suzannah. That's not only from an identifiable writer but a commercial-market song. Unless you're speaking more of the manner of dissemination it assumed rather than the source.

And frankly, I don't see it as all that humorous.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 22 Jun 06 - 03:22 PM

Derby Ram funny? I don't think so. What's funny about sheep murder?

Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 22 Jun 06 - 03:37 PM

It's not about "sheep murder". It's about exaggeration, which is a stock-in-trade item for humor.   Killing the ram is incidental.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 22 Jun 06 - 03:46 PM

Oh, sorry. Reports of the ram's death are 'exaggerated'.

Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs
From: Steve Benbows protege
Date: 22 Jun 06 - 03:52 PM

The mole catcher. Makes me smile anyway!!

Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 22 Jun 06 - 04:01 PM

'Geld Him, Lasses, Geld Him'. Makes me smile anyway.

Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs
From: Johnhenry'shammer
Date: 22 Jun 06 - 04:07 PM

Old Dan Tucker was a fine old man/washed his face with a frying pan/combed his hair with a wagon wheel/and died with a tooth ache in his heel...

Funny stuff

Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 22 Jun 06 - 04:26 PM

Dan, Dan the dirty man
Washed his face in a frying pan
Combed his hair with a rusty nail
And scratched his belly with his big toe nail.

North-East England children's street song.

Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs
From: GUEST,Bob Coltman
Date: 22 Jun 06 - 04:42 PM

For sure, "The Tune the Old Cow Died On."

Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 22 Jun 06 - 04:51 PM

Good grief, first dead sheep and now dead cows. Not funny.

Just listening to Anahata and Mary Humphreys doing The Cuckoo & The Nightingale which is really funny (in a Geld Him, Lasses Geld Him sort of way, i.e. witty, not blokish stupid).

Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 22 Jun 06 - 05:24 PM

Queen Eleanor's Confession (assume it's traditional?)

The Basket of Eggs (from the Penguin book of EFS so it must be! ;-)

Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 22 Jun 06 - 05:52 PM

Countess Richard...and how old does a song have to be to be traditional or how does it qualify as traditional....there are many contemporary songs which are becoming traditional...not because of age but because of usage. Perhaps we should have a debate on the true meaning of tradition. For three years, the barbecue has come out on Christmas eve and chestnuts are roasted on it...it has already become a family tradition if you get my drift.
Best wishes, Mike.

Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs
From: Don Firth
Date: 22 Jun 06 - 06:04 PM

Not to worry. Not only is Queen Eleanor's Confession traditional, it's Child 156.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 22 Jun 06 - 06:05 PM

A song's age doesn't come into it; if it has known authorship, it's not traditional. So a C16 William Byrd madrigal or motet isn't trad. There's many a 'contemporary' or composed (or trad. arr song or tune) that gets listed as trad, not so much because of 'usage' but through laziness in attribution or else to avoid paying copyright.

Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs
From: captainbirdseye
Date: 22 Jun 06 - 07:11 PM

the cunning cobbler,the crabfish,our gudeman or seven nights drunk the bald headedend of the broom,the rest of the days your own,my husbands got no courage in him.

Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 22 Jun 06 - 07:19 PM

One person's humorous song is someone else's tragedy,
The Tailor's Breeches, Won'tyou come down to Yarmouth Town,the Poor Lonely Widow, the Widow of the West Moorland, Compliments returned, Shepherd oh shepherd won't you come home, Butter and Cheese and all, Wop she ad it, the Christmas Goose,three jolly sportsmen, Gossip Joan

Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs
From: Amos
Date: 22 Jun 06 - 07:55 PM

SIx Nights Drunk
The Eddystone Light
Finnegan's Wake
The Irish Rover
Soldier, Oh, Soldier
The Lock-Keeper's Lament
A Very Unfortunate Man

All side-splittingly funny in their day.

A

Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs
From: GUEST,Joe_F
Date: 22 Jun 06 - 09:44 PM

King John & the Bishop (Child 45)

--- Joe Fineman    [e-mail]

||: Investing is not the same as gambling, and downtown is not the same as uptown. :||

Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs
From: GUEST,Gerry
Date: 22 Jun 06 - 09:51 PM

Nine Times a Night.

Does searching the Digital Tradition for "keyword: Humor" work?

Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 23 Jun 06 - 01:09 AM

Killkelly Ireland, it brought a tear to my leg.

eric

Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 23 Jun 06 - 01:47 AM

Yes I know it's not traditional.

eric

Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs
From: Bunnahabhain
Date: 23 Jun 06 - 06:06 AM

Well, one tham most women seem to find rather amusing is a french song 'Petit Homme' It's listed as traditional on the Eliza Carthy CD.

Just why a woman complaining about her very small husband being no use for anything, and that she keeps losing him in bed could be funny is beyond me....

Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 23 Jun 06 - 07:54 AM

Ahh, that reminds me of The Man Who Was So Small - though the verses (particularly some of the rhymes) sound as though they were consciously written rather than evolving out of an oral process. It's sung to the tune of a catchy Welsh hornpipe which I recognise but can't name, it's in the DT under "The Little Husband" and was recorded by John the Fish. The story is fun, if a bit wince-making, and it would certainly fit into all but the most sombre and strait-laced trad environments.

Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs
From: GUEST,HipflaskAndy
Date: 23 Jun 06 - 08:23 AM

Farming Servant - I like that one (check out Carthy version on that Free Reed 4 CD set! marvellous)
Coachman's Whip (Kennedy Book FS of GB & I)
er, must stop coming up with the bawdy ones!
Don't want a wrong impression!
Cheers!

Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs
From: GUEST,saulgoldie
Date: 23 Jun 06 - 09:56 AM

"Travelling Man" as done by Dave Bromberg, also "Did You Ever Wake Up With Bullfrogs on your Eyes?"

"White Collar Holler" by Stan Rogers, a work song for this era, although some of the tech references are now quite dated. (I have it transcribed, if anyone cares.)

And "Whoopa, Whoopa, John" done by (I think) Lee Hays

"Odd Man Out" by Lou and Peter Berryman is a RIOT, and lots more by them.

Other'n WCH being in a trad style, these are all modern. I hope that is OK.

Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs
From: GUEST,Bob Coltman
Date: 23 Jun 06 - 10:26 AM

Wait wait. A song of known authorship's not traditional? Usually not, I agree, but what about, say, Alfred Williams' 1907 "A Man Without a Woman" (Roll a Silver Dollar)? William S. Hays' "Curtains of Night" (I think), Tucker's "When This Cruel War Is Over," Dan Smith's "De Boatmen Dance," Samuel Lover's "Bold Sojer Boy," Keith's "Go 'Way Old Man," Tyte's "My Mary Anne?" All these have been collected in various places from impeccably traditional singers and communities. And then there's Ben Jonson's "Drink To Me Only," which has passed into tradition with three different tunes...

(Not the best examples, I know, but it serves. I'm sure I could think of better ones if I wasn't in a rush. I'm just not sure "traditional" excludes known authors.)

Bob

Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs
From: GUEST,Ned at work
Date: 23 Jun 06 - 10:40 AM

Wait a minute! if a song had to have no known authorship to be traditional why do they need to write trad. anon?
The General.

Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs
From: thespionage
Date: 23 Jun 06 - 10:48 AM

"Travelling Man" is a great song and the kind of song I looking for, but it was written by Pink Anderson.

Russ

Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs
From: GUEST,Bob Coltman
Date: 23 Jun 06 - 11:12 AM

"Traveling Man," if it's the one I'm thinking of:

Come and let me tell you 'bout a traveling man,
His home was down in Tennessee...

CHO He was a traveling man, God knows he was a traveling man,
          Travelin'est man ever was in this land...

It goes way back before Anderson. Was recorded by both blacks and whites in the 1920s, including Prince Albert Hunt. Probably not traditional, but composed: an early (excuse the term) "coon song" whose origin, as far as I know, is untraced.

Or is Anderson's a different song?

Bob

Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 23 Jun 06 - 11:14 AM

General, Sir!

If a song or tune is accredited to "Trad/Anon" and it's still in copyright, the composer or his/her heirs get no royalties. Nowadays you can PRS/MCPS-register your work who will try and recover what's due to you but many still slip through, as in the scores of Irish singers who claim something called Shores Of Erin (y'know, that one about sailing round the coast of Ireland) has been in their families for centuries and no. they've never heard of Ewan MacColl and Shoals of Herring). And then there are all those which musicians have researched from disuse and obscurity and arranged that chancers pick up, usually with inaccuracies, record and pass off as 'Trad' instead of 'Trad. Arr'. The (Monde)Black family is especially notorious for failing to acknowledge secondary sources and arrangers.

Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs
From: Briagha
Date: 23 Jun 06 - 11:23 AM

Maids When You're Young Never Wed an Old Man
The Rattlin' Bog

Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs
From: michaelr
Date: 23 Jun 06 - 11:50 AM

"if it has known authorship, it's not traditional"

Oh really? And here I was thinking that Raglan Road, Down by the Sally Gardens, My Lagan Love, Boys of Barr na Sraide were considered traditional, even though their authors are known. Silly me.

Cheers,
Michael

Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 23 Jun 06 - 11:59 AM

silly me

Indeed. None of the above are especially funny, though 'lovesick lennonshees' and 'beetles horns' sound as if they might be if we knew whatever they were.

Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs
From: GUEST,Russ
Date: 23 Jun 06 - 05:37 PM

Tough crowd.

De gustibus non disputandem est.

Russ the perpetual GUEST

Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs
From: Tannywheeler
Date: 23 Jun 06 - 08:17 PM

Double check the attribution of White Collar Holler. Stan Rogers may have made the most well-known recording, but it was written by a friend of his, Nigel Russell. I became acquainted with Nigel some 15-20 years ago. He was living in the Austin, Texas area and used to sing at Austin Friends of Trad. Music open-mike sessions. He moved out to one of the "highland lakes" near Austin, built a boat, his wife had twin boys. Somewhere among all of that he formed an OT-Bg band with several folks and was playing around various places. Tw

Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs
From: GUEST,Joe_F
Date: 23 Jun 06 - 09:34 PM

Mention of French songs reminded me of "Chevaliers de la table ronde".

--- Joe Fineman    [e-mail]

||: Eager to please, and a nuisance. Easy to please, and a comfort. :||

Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs
From: Artful Codger
Date: 23 Jun 06 - 09:47 PM

Hey, let's not beef when someone suggests a song that fits the spirit of the request but not necessarily the precise criteria. Sheesh!

"Traditional" tends to be used in several rather different senses. To debate its meaning in this thread is pointless, considering the subject has been rehashed to death so many times before. Real tradition has to do with usage and perception; there are no firm guidelines regarding attribution, copyright or age, which are at best ancillary considerations. So if you want to try to impose some strict definition based on such concepts, it's an artificial one not generally shared.

Rest assured that if someone is interested to learn a song mentioned here, he is likely to search for threads specific to the song, where he will likely encounter all he needs to know about its proper attribution. Can we move on?

Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs
From: Elmer Fudd
Date: 24 Jun 06 - 03:03 AM

How about "The Eddystone Light?"

Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs
From: captainbirdseye
Date: 24 Jun 06 - 04:33 AM

a Private Still,this is particuarly funny if sung by somebody who pronunces ther R s as W s,I remember a man called Orville singing it, i could never keep a straight face wnen he sang the words the Tipperary Ranks,up CORK.

Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs
From: GUEST,Joe_F
Date: 24 Jun 06 - 09:21 PM

"Grim Grizzle" -- by Burns, but I dare say it has trad roots. A satire on the pretensions of authority 쳌à la Canute, but with no pretension of subtlety. The ending may fairly be called uproarious:



Then she 's ta'en Hawkie [a cow] by the tail, And wrung wi' might and main, Till Hawkie rowted through the woods Wi' agonizing pain. `Sh--, sh--, ye bitch,' Grim Grizzel roar'd, Till hill and valley rang; `And sh--, ye bitch,' the echoes roar'd Lincluden [a church] wa's amang.



Speaking of Burns, I see that "Holy Willie's Prayer" has not been mentioned.

--- Joe Fineman    [e-mail]

||: Men have two heads, but only enough blood to operate one at a time. :||

Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs
From: GUEST,Thameside OttO
Date: 25 Jun 06 - 05:29 AM

How about "Me Husband's got no courage in him, oh dear oh" (or its equally famous (but not traditional, of course) parody "Me Husband's too much Courage in him . . . . " both sung very well in the County of Essex by a wonderful, all-girl harmony group called The Penny Huffers for many years.

The Huffers also sang "An Old Man Came Courting Me", just as humourous.

There's a song I do occasionally called "The Horseman" where the girl asks the horseman for the favour of what lies between his legs then when he dismounts, she jumps on his "bonnie little brown" and rides away with the last lines . . .
"Don't make such a moan
The mistake was your own
For I sought nothing but your horse!"

Another one I sing is the cumulative drinking song "he that makes one, makes two". Is it traditional? It's in Thomas d'Urfey's 18th century "Pills to Purge Melancholie", I believe.

Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs
From: Bat Goddess
Date: 25 Jun 06 - 02:09 PM

There's traditional and then there's "in the tradition" -- nothing wrong in singing a good song written in the tradition, especially if you know and acknowledge that it's been written by a known person. Useful, too (shows you know what you're singing and care enough to learn the background of the song) as well as being true to the song itself -- which, in my opinion, is what singing this material is all about..

Just my two cents' worth.

As far as other funny songs, how about "Fish and Tin and Copper" where another woman gets the best of the devil, and "Nine Times A Night" where, well, you know.

Linn

Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs
From: Arkie
Date: 25 Jun 06 - 02:49 PM

Buffalo Boy
Will The Weaver (or Every Day Dirt)
Wee Cooper of Fife
No, John, No
I Wish They'd Do It Now
Leatherwinged Bat
The Persian Kitty
Thais
I Had But 50 Cents
Dame Durden
The Hound Dog Song
Down In The Arkan
Jack Was Every Inch A Sailor
Miss Bailey
Billy Boy
Eight Babies to Mind
Boll Weevil
The Fox
My Crosseyed Girl
Barefoot Boy With Boots On
The Old Maid's Song
The Cat Came Back
Whistle, Daughter, Whistle
Devil's Nine Questions
Farmer's Cursed Wife

Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs
From: Arkie
Date: 25 Jun 06 - 03:08 PM

There Ain't No Bugs On Me

and there is a bug song with the line
"every microbe and baccilus has a different way to kill us". I can not think of the actual title. I have been wracking my brain to no avail. I have not sung it in many years and my memory no longer works on demand. Perhaps this will jog someone's memory

Subject: Lyr Add: SOME LITTLE BUG
From: Arkie
Date: 25 Jun 06 - 06:17 PM

I figured the title would sneak up on me. Here is the bug song.

Some Little Bug

In these days of indigestion it is oftentimes a question
As to what to eat and what to leave alone.
Every microbe and bacillus has a different way to kill us
And in time they all will claim us for their own.
There are germs of every kind in every food that you can find
In the market or upon the bill of fare.
Drinking water's just as risky as the so-called "deadly" whiskey
And it's often a mistake to breathe the air.

Cho: For some little bug is going to get you someday.
    Some little bug will creep behind you some day.
    Then he'll send for his bug friends
    And all your troubles they will end,
    For some little bug is gonna find you someday.

The inviting green cucumber, gets most everybody's number
While sweetcorn has a system of its own.
Now, the radish seems nutritious, but its behavior is quite vicious
And a doctor will soon be coming to your home.
Eating lobster, cooked or plain, is only flirting with ptomaine,
While an oyster often has a lot to say.
And those clams we eat in chowder make the angels sing the louder
For they know that we'll be with them right away.

For some little bug is going to get you someday.
Some little bug will creep behind you some day.
Eat that juicy sliced pineapple, and the sexton dusts the chapel
Some little bug is gonna find you some day.

When cold storage vaults you visit, You can only say, "What is it
Makes poor mortals fill their systems with such stuff?"
Now, at breakfast prunes are dandy if a stomach pump is handy
And a doctor can be called quite soon enough.

Eat a plate of fine pig's knuckles and the headstone cutter chuckles
While the gravedigger makes a mark upon his cuff.
And eat that lovely red bologna and you'll wear a wood kimona
As your relatives start picking out your stuff.

All those crazy foods they fix, will float us 'cross the River Styx
Or start us climbing up the Milky Way.
And those meals they serve in courses mean a hearse and two black horses
So before their meals some people always pray.

Luscious grapes breed appendicitis, while their juice leads to gastritis
So there's only death to greet us either way.
Fried liver's nice, but mind you, friends will follow close behind you
And the papers, they will have nice things to say.

    For some little bug is going to get you someday.
    Some little bug will creep behind you some day.
    Eat that spicy bowl of chili, on your breast they'll plant a lily .
    Oh, some little bug is gonna find you some day.

Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs
From: Mickey191
Date: 25 Jun 06 - 08:36 PM

Cannot vouch for it's author or if it's traditional--But it is damn funny: Nell Flaherty's Drake.

Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs
From: Severn
Date: 25 Jun 06 - 09:12 PM

The Black Cook
The Old Sea Chest
Life Is A Toil
Bungle Rye

Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs
From: captainbirdseye
Date: 26 Jun 06 - 06:08 PM

Since when has the boolweevil blues been a funny songIknow humour can vary,but whats funny about cotton crops being wiped out by the bollweevil,and people being homeless.

Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 27 Jun 06 - 10:12 AM

Two posts above mentioned "Some Little Bug".

When I read the lyrics of this song maybe four or five years ago, I was enchanted, but no tune did I find.   What to do? What to do?

I ended up writing my own tune for it, with which I'm pretty pleased, thank you very much. But I'd still be interested to hear the original tune, if there is one. Does anyone have a source for the original tune?

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs
From: Arkie
Date: 27 Jun 06 - 01:10 PM

I have a book with the tune packed somewhere in my garage. I am looking for it as I get time, and it will show up one of these days. If someone else does not find it first I can send you a copy.

Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs
From: Severn
Date: 27 Jun 06 - 07:56 PM

Percy French wrote "Nell Flaherty's Drake", I believe.

(In Draconian Measures?)

Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 28 Jun 06 - 07:49 AM

Arkie:

I have the original tune now. Thanks.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs
From: mrsmac
Date: 28 Jun 06 - 10:06 AM

Nell flaherty's Drake was not written by Percy French as far i know. It's author is unknown but dates from 19th century and is thought to have been inspired by and code for Robert Emmett.

Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs
From: Severn
Date: 28 Jun 06 - 05:01 PM

Thanks, mrsmac. I was told that by someone who first sang it to me years ago. I looked on some liner notes of recordings I have it on (shoulda double checked anyway) and found out you are indeed right.

Sorry for bad info, folks.

Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs
From: thespionage
Date: 28 Jun 06 - 05:01 PM

Bob,

That's the song, but Rise Up Singing credits it to Pink Anderson and Roy Bookbinder says that it is Pink Anderson's when he performs it and lists Anderson as the song's composer on the album of the same name. I don't know where the discrepancy is. Maybe Pink Anderson codified the song from various versions floating around. (It's a great song regardless.)

Russ

Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs
From: GUEST
Date: 29 Sep 08 - 11:01 AM

I like The Mermaid (trad/anonymous) as sung by the Great Big sea; also by them, Harbour Grace Excursion (written by Johnny Burke). Cocaine Bill and Morphine Sue is also v funny, especially when sung by someone "too old" to be talking about such things.

Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 29 Sep 08 - 11:17 AM

The funniest song tends not to be very funny after you've heard it 37,000 times!

Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs
From: The Sandman
Date: 29 Sep 08 - 11:21 AM

Lord Randall.

Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs
From: Mr Red
Date: 29 Sep 08 - 11:23 AM

A Trooper Watering his Nag - sing it often. In fact a lady about 15 year my senior - when she heard it thanked me for doing a complete version because she only knew it as a nursery rhyme with one innocent verse.

And recently there was a song on the radio that left nothing to the imagination from the same era if not the same book - Pills to Purge Melancholy by Thomas D'Urfey. 1st ed 1715.

see the thread on Samuel Pepys

Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs
From: Mr Red
Date: 29 Sep 08 - 11:37 AM

Oh Yes Nel Flaherty's Drake love it. Would learn it but I have not enough time or memory cells. It follows a well established tradition known to the Romans. Though they tended to write on lead tablets and thow them down a well, at a temple. They called them "curses" or modern day archeologists do.

Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs
From: Newport Boy
Date: 29 Sep 08 - 11:38 AM

Guest (above) - You'd have to be pretty old to be 'too old' to be talking about Cocaine Bill & Morphine Sue, which dates back at least to the 1920's. Many things are only 'new' to youngsters!

Phil

Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs
From: GUEST,TJ in San Diego
Date: 29 Sep 08 - 11:53 AM

A Horse Named Bill
Thais (Not the opera - the parody song;It's about a libidinous monk and a belly dancer)
Zuleika (She might have been the belly dancer)
Hullaballoo Belay
Drunken Sailor

Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs
From: Midchuck
Date: 29 Sep 08 - 11:55 AM

By far the best source of funny songs in the oral tradition (whether the authorship is known or not) is the old "Song Fest." There were several editions, mine is the 1958 printing with the yellow cover. Bought in '59 my freshman year in college. When it fell apart I punched the pages so I could put it in a three-ring binder.

Good Liberals may not consider it an acceptable source, since many of the funny songs of the era were built around making fun of stereotypes of racial or ethnic groups, but us crusty old farts can still laugh at them.

The second-best source is Jerry Silverman's "The Dirty Song Book." But that might be objectionable as well, because it makes fun of sexual stereotypes and peculiarities.

Eventually we will get to the point where nothing that might hurt the feelings or anyone, anywhere, will be considered funny. Meaning nothing at all will be funny.

Let us laugh as much as we can, while we can.

Peter

Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs
From: GUEST,TJ in San Diego
Date: 29 Sep 08 - 02:00 PM

Midchuck:

I have the same book, still in somewhat usable shape. You are correct with respect to the PC element. I subscribe, however, to the definition of PC advanced by students at one of our universities recently(paraphrased, but close): "Political Correctness: Advancing the proposition that it is possible to pick up a turd by the clean end."

Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs
From: Artful Codger
Date: 30 Sep 08 - 03:36 AM

Uncle Dave: Two years late, but here's an answer.

"Some Little Bug Is Going to Find You" (not "Get You" as in Arkie's post of lyrics) was written in 1915; words by Benjamin Hapgood Burt and Roy Atwell, music by Silvio Hein. You can find it on the CD "Moonlight Bay: Songs as Is and Songs as Was" (1998) by Joan Morris and William Bolcom. Joan mostly recites rather than sings this song, but you can pick out the tune from Bill's playing. There are also MP3s available of Billy Murray's recording (1916). See http://www.archive.org/details/somlitbug1916

Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs
From: GUEST,Volgadon
Date: 30 Sep 08 - 06:13 AM

Any in the Marrowbones vein, or 7 Drunken Nights.

Also, an Ukrainian song, 'Pidmanula, Pidvela', in which the girl keeps inviting the guy places but never shows up.

Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs
From: GUEST,oberlixie
Date: 29 Jul 10 - 08:21 AM

Believe there is arecently composed ditty entitled Thats another reason why i stayed in Scibbereen,bus strike,slept in,no money etc etc,also a peach of asong about the misery of growing old called For fourty five years i,ve been buggered, one line is, Uric acid yhey say is my problem i do not mind telling you this it takes about half of an hour to get my old doodle to piss.Then it realy gets rough.You would have to be drunk enough to sing it but sober enough to remember the words

Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs
From: The Sandman
Date: 29 Jul 10 - 09:41 AM

the bald headed end of the broom.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmqpgT0ClK4