Lyr Add: House that Jack Built/Domicile Erected...

Subject: The House that Jack built
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 24 Oct 06 - 04:39 AM

While Googling to refresh my memory of the words to this childhood poem, I came upon this excellent 'improved version'
It made me laugh so much I thought I would share it with you all.
The House that Jack Built

Giok

Subject: RE: The House that Jack built
From: Flash Company
Date: 24 Oct 06 - 05:50 AM

Oh dear, Jack is definitely alright! I have a teacher friend who will love that.

FC

Subject: RE: The House that Jack built
From: Joybell
Date: 24 Oct 06 - 06:43 PM

Giok, Thank you. True-love used to do a little-kid show based on "The House that Jack Built." He'll enjoy this version.
Cheers, Joy

Subject: Lyr Add: THIS IS THE HOUSE THAT JERRY BUILT
From: Charley Noble
Date: 24 Oct 06 - 07:50 PM

This old music hall song appears to have some relation to this song, at least the chorus is a parody (from the draft HOUSING SONG BOOK):

This is the House that Jerry Built

This late 19th century song dramatizes "the trials and tribulations" experienced by the aspiring middle class as they sought escape from the working class neighborhoods of London to the new suburbs. Like many themes in the housing song literature, we will find this one repeating itself in every age and to paraphrase Malvina Reynolds 'they all sound just the same." This song was composed by T. S. Lonsdale in 1885 and performed in the British music hall by artists such as James Fawn.
Words by T. S. Lonsdale, © 1885
Music by W. G. Eaton

THIS IS THE HOUSE THAT JERRY BUILT

My wife is a woman and like all the rest,
Bound to be scheming something for the best,
She had a desire a few months ago,
To live in the suburbs of London you know;
She went out in search and very soon found,
An Agent who showed her the houses all around,
They settled on one, after a good hunt,
In the gothic style – and a garden in front.

SPOKEN: And also in pond in front, I should have said, for the road was nothing better, when the men brought the furniture, they were up to here in mud and it took them a day and a half to dig the Van out of the road, and the mould in the garden is mould, I put in some seeds a few months ago, all that came up were half bricks and clay –

CHORUS: And there's the cat that ate the rat,
And the servant girl's not fat,
And there's the children with the cramp,
Because the place is always damp;
And there's the workman always nigh,
And the Plumber's always dry,
And through the roof, you see the sky,
In the house that Jerry built.

Red bricks and church windows look very nice,
And the place some might think is a paradise,
Other sweet things in the gothic style but,
The doors like the windows will never quite shut,
If the wind's the wrong way it's really no joke,
We're smothered to death by volumes of smoke,
But there we all sit and shiver with cold,
Or up in some shawls or blankets we've rolled.

SPOKEN: Don't have a fire in the place because the chimney smokes, oh it's a nice place to live in, the nearest pub's a mile off, when the girl goes for the supper beer we bid her good-bye, just the same as if she was off to America, and perhaps I'm dying of thirst, or the Missus or children got the wind or spasm bad, and want a drop of short to keep us warm you know. (CHORUS)

It's nice don't you know, at night when in bed,
For the rain to come through and drop on your head,
And the wife of your bosom to sit up and jaw,
While you rush about, and wipe up the floor;
Another nice thing that worries your brains,
Is the whistle that's from a few passing trains,
An old cock that crows will give you delight,
And also a dog that howls all the night.

SPOKEN: They say that when you hear a dog howl it's a sign of death, the next morning to the dog, oh it is a nice place to live in, we can never get a girl to stay longer than a month, because the place is so dull, and no soldiers about, Policemen you see once a week, and Burglars every night, it's a good place for Doctors and Dentists, someone's always got the toothache, whooping cough or measles – (CHORUS)

Through the walls you can hear what your neighbors say,
And when they commence the piano to play,
The five finger exercise and other sweet things,
A Cornet sometimes a friend of theirs brings;
You feel just as if you could tear out your hair,
Or at your dear wife you could say a sweet prayer,
For she, yes, the woman's the cause of it all,
When the water taps froze and the children squall.

SPOKEN: The wife says, oh yes it's all my fault, you blame me for everything, I'm the cause of it all, you strike me, now do, or say I'm mad, and have me put away, because I took this beastly house and think a Donkey's got a soul, one husband's done it to his wife, but he's been well done since – (CHORUS)

Warm regards,
Landlady's Daughter

Subject: Lyr Add: HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT / DOMICILE ERECTED
From: Joe Offer
Date: 24 Oct 06 - 08:06 PM

I think it's worth posting the whole text. You never know when the source may disappear. They say the parody comes from 1890 - could that be?
-Joe Offer-

---

The original and "improved" versions of The House That Jack Built

The original nursery rime, and a 19th century jocular elaboration.

The House That Jack Built

This is the house that Jack built.

This is the malt
That lay in the house that Jack built.

This is the rat
That ate the malt
That lay in the house that Jack built.

This is the cat,
That killed the rat,
That ate the malt
That lay in the house that Jack built.

This is the dog,
That worried the cat,
That killed the rat,
That ate the malt
That lay in the house that Jack built.

This is the cow with the crumpled horn,
That tossed the dog,
That worried the cat,
That killed the rat,
That ate the malt
That lay in the house that Jack built.

This is the maiden all forlorn,
That milked the cow with the crumpled horn,
That tossed the dog,
That worried the cat,
That killed the rat,
That ate the malt
That lay in the house that Jack built.

This is the man all tattered and torn,
That kissed the maiden all forlorn,
That milked the cow with the crumpled horn,
That tossed the dog,
That worried the cat,
That killed the rat,
That ate the malt
That lay in the house that Jack built.

This is the priest all shaven and shorn,
That married the man all tattered and torn,
That kissed the maiden all forlorn,
That milked the cow with the crumpled horn,
That tossed the dog,
That worried the cat,
That killed the rat,
That ate the malt
That lay in the house that Jack built.

This is the cock that crowed in the morn,
That waked the priest all shaven and shorn,
That married the man all tattered and torn,
That kissed the maiden all forlorn,
That milked the cow with the crumpled horn,
That tossed the dog,
That worried the cat,
That killed the rat,
That ate the malt
That lay in the house that Jack built.

This is the farmer sowing the corn,
That kept the cock that crowed in the morn,
That waked the priest all shaven and shorn,
That married the man all tattered and torn,
That kissed the maiden all forlorn,
That milked the cow with the crumpled horn,
That tossed the dog,
That worried the cat,
That killed the rat,
That ate the malt
That lay in the house that Jack built.

THE DOMICILE ERECTED BY JOHN.

Translated from the Vulgate.

Behold the Mansion reared by daedal Jack.

See the malt stored in many a plethoric sack,
In the proud cirque of Ivan's bivouac.

Mark how the Rat's felonious fangs invade
The golden stores in John's pavilion laid.

Anon, with velvet foot and Tarquin strides,
Subtle Grimalkin to his quarry glides,_
Grimalkin grim, that slew the fierce rodent
Whose tooth insidious Johann's sackcloth rent.

Lo! now the deep-mouthed canine foe's assault,
That vexed the avenger of the stolen malt,
Stored in the hallowed precincts of that hall
That rose complete at Jack's creative call.

Here stalks the impetuous Cow with crumpled horn,
Whereon the exacerbating hound was torn,
Who bayed the feline slaughter-beast that slew
The Rat predacious, whose keen fangs ran through
The textile fibers that involved the grain
Which lay in Hans' inviolate domain.

Here walks forlorn the Damsel crowned with rue,
Lactiferous spoils from vaccine dugs, who drew,
Of that corniculate beast whose tortuous horn
Tossed to the clouds, in fierce vindictive scorn,
The harrowing hound, whose braggart bark and stir
Arched the lithe spine and reared the indignant fur
Of Puss, that with verminicidal claw
Struck the weird rat in whose insatiate maw
Lay reeking malt that erst in Juan's courts we saw.

Robed in senescent garb that seems in sooth
Too long a prey to Chronos' iron tooth,
Behold the man whose amorous lips incline,
Full with young Eros' osculative sign,
To the lorn maiden whose lact-albic hands
Drew albu-lactic wealth from lacteal glands
Of that immortal bovine, by whose horn
Distort, to realm ethereal was borne
The beast catulean, vexer of that sly
Ulysses quadrupedal, who made die
The old mordacious Rat that dared devour
Antecedaneous Ale in John's domestic bower.

Lo, here, with hirsute honors doffed, succinct
Of saponaceous locks, the Priest who linked
In Hymen's golden bands the torn unthrift,
Whose means exiguous stared from many a rift,
Even as he kissed the virgin all forlorn,
Who milked the cow with implicated horn,
Who in fine wrath the canine torturer skied,
That dared to vex the insidious muricide,
Who let auroral effluence through the pelt
Of the sly Rat that robbed the palace Jack had built.

The loud cantankerous Shanghae comes at last,
Whose shouts arouse the shorn ecclesiast,
Who sealed the vows of Hymen's sacrament,
To him who, robed in garments indigent,
Exosculates the damsel lachrymose,
The emulgator of that horned brute morose,
That tossed the dog, that worried the cat, that kilt
The rat, that ate the malt, that lay in the house that Jack built.

From C. C. Bombaugh, Gleanings for the Curious from the Harvest Fields of Literature (1890)

Subject: RE: The House that Jack built
From: Joe_F
Date: 24 Oct 06 - 09:42 PM

Linguists also have a version with the dependence of the clauses reversed, to show the limits of nesting in English grammar --
something like

This is Jack, who built the house.

This is Jack, who built the house the malt lay in.

This is Jack, who built the house the malt the rat ate lay in.

This is Jack, who built the house the malt the rat the cat killed ate lay in.

This is Jack, who built the house the malt the rat the cat the dog worried killed ate lay in.

Subject: RE: The House that Jack built
From: Charley Noble
Date: 25 Oct 06 - 09:39 AM

Dear Mr. Offer-

Do you have to SHOUT so early in the morning?

Cheerily,
Charley Noble