Ten Thousand Gobs Laid Down Their Swabs

13 May 18 - 12:11 PM (#3924122)
Subject: Ten Thousand Gobs Laid Down Their Swabs
From: Lighter

The United States Marines have long and a rhyme (or song) that appears to date back to World War I (1917-18 for the U.S.):

"Ten thousand gobs laid down their swabs to fight one sick Marine."

The line appears in the 1926 silent film "Tell It to the Marines."

By 1945 it was being sung to the tune of "The Marines' Hymn," with a second line added:

"Ten thousand more stood by and swore 'twas the damnedest fight they'd seen."

In "The Run up to the Punch Bowl" (2006), Marine John Nolan recalled the following elaborate form from the Korean War (1950-53):

       A thousand gobs laid down their swabs
        To lick one sick Marine.                                
        A thousand more stood by and swore
       twas the bloodiest fight they’d seen.
        The Army and the Navy and the lousy Engineers
        Could never lick the Leathernecks
        In a hundred thousand years.

Chorus:
        As we go marching
        And the band begins to P-L-A-Y
        You can hear them shouting,
        The Raggedy Ass Marines are on parade


The chorus appeared as a separate WW1 song in Niles, Moore, & Walgren's "Songs My Mother Never Taught Me" (1928), and the lines about the Army and the Navy were sung during WW1 to the tune of "The Son of a Gamboleer" ("A Rambling Wreck from Georgia Tech").

Does anybody still know the song?

(For those beyond the pond, "gob" is a now old-fashioned slang term for a sailor.)

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13 May 18 - 01:10 PM (#3924137)
Subject: RE: Ten Thousand Gobs Laid Down Their Swabs
From: Jack Campin

And there was me thinking it had to be about the closure of a dental school.

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13 May 18 - 06:28 PM (#3924195)
Subject: RE: Ten Thousand Gobs Laid Down Their Swabs
From: GUEST,Ebor Fiddler

You are usually right Jack!

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13 May 18 - 06:39 PM (#3924198)
Subject: RE: Ten Thousand Gobs Laid Down Their Swabs
From: GUEST

Dats roight- and ten tousand Micks laid down der sticks at the battle of the Boyne.

Gud noight, Rutie.

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13 May 18 - 06:47 PM (#3924199)
Subject: RE: Ten Thousand Gobs Laid Down Their Swabs
From: Lighter

In fact, the Cleveland Plain Dealer (Jan. 12, 1927), p. 2, advertises "Tell It to the Marines" (starring Lon Chaney) by headlining the rhyming line in question.

From the Seattle Daily Times (Dec. 31, 1928), p. 2:

Enlisted with the consent of their mother in Spokane Friday, the youngsters had learned up to the forty-ninth verse of the "Marine Hymn" and were expert in warbling "Ten thousand gobs laid down their swabs to lick a sick Marine," a tender ditty calculated to improve their future relations with the Navy.



And consider:

New York Journal and Advertiser (Nov. 20, 1898), p.44:

As the great crowd poured out through the gates [after Harvard beat Yale in their annual football game], there was one continued song of Harvard jubilation. he crimson men owned the town. Most of them went back on the evening trains in order to burn up Boston. But up to a late hour the voice of John the Orangeman [a devoted but alcoholic Harvard fan] was heard in the land. Down one of the dark, rain-swept streets he could be heard in the following jocund lay:

    Get ready, Mrs. Farrell,
      Get ye ready very soon,
    Tin thousand pikes are flashing
      Be the risin' of the moon.
    Be the risin' of the moon,
      Be the risin' of the moon,
    Tin thousand micks laid down their picks
      Be the risin' of the moon.


Dallas Morning News (June 20, 1905), p. 3:

"Three thousand Micks threw down their picks at the battle of Boyne- Water." Thirteen soldiers of the First Cavalry, more or less Irish, were singing this song at the top of their voices last night near the Leon Springs target range.

The historical "Boyne Water" turns into "B'ilin' Water" in a non-historical variant.

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13 May 18 - 06:51 PM (#3924200)
Subject: RE: Ten Thousand Gobs Laid Down Their Swabs
From: Lighter

Check out also the concurrent "10,000 Swedes" thread.

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25 May 23 - 11:41 AM (#4173105)
Subject: RE: Ten Thousand Gobs Laid Down Their Swabs
From: GUEST,Ellen

Found this on the back of my dad's card from PI in 1968.
"One Marine"
10,000 Gobs laid down their swabs to kill One sick Marine
10,000 more sat by and swore, it was the bloodiest fight they'd seen.
And when it was overthe blood was on the shore
One man was left, and One man alone, and he belonged to the Corps!

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25 May 23 - 12:43 PM (#4173111)
Subject: RE: Ten Thousand Gobs Laid Down Their Swabs
From: Lighter

Thanks, Ellen!

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30 Apr 25 - 06:06 PM (#4221881)
Subject: RE: Ten Thousand Gobs Laid Down Their Swabs
From: GUEST

From my cousin who got it from my father (Sgt. Maj. USMC).

As we go marching and the band begins to pllllay,
You can hear the girls shouting the raggedy-ass Marines are on parade.
Eyes right, assholes tight, advance foreskins to the rear.
We're the boys who make the noise, we're always on the go,
We're the heroes of the night, but we'd rather drink than fight.
We're the raggedy-ass Marines on parade.

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30 Apr 25 - 09:01 PM (#4221891)
Subject: RE: Ten Thousand Gobs Laid Down Their Swabs
From: Lighter

A mash-up of two songs, Guest, both from World War I (1917-18) and apparently going strong fifty or more years later: "The Foreskin Fusiiers" and "The Raggedy-Ass Marines."

Somewhere along the line the text has gotten a wee bit bowdlerized.

Thanks for posting.

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01 May 25 - 07:56 AM (#4221899)
Subject: RE: Ten Thousand Gobs Laid Down Their Swabs
From: Jack Horntip

And here's from the Marines (Camp Lejeune, NC, 1944):
      
"Ten thousand gobs laid down their swabs
Just to lick one sick Marine."

Tune: Marines Hymn, first two phrases.      

I never put the idea to the test, which may in part account for the fact that I'm still alive.

Posted by Sandy Ives to the Ballad-L email list on Aug 19, 2004

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04 May 25 - 02:20 PM (#4222027)
Subject: RE: Ten Thousand Gobs Laid Down Their Swabs
From: Lighter

Nashville Banner (Jan. 20, 1924) [as learned on Parris I., 1918]:

“Ten thousand gobs
Laid down their swabs
To beat up ten marines.”

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