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Lyr Req: On the Road to Mandalay (Kipling)

16 Aug 00 - 08:16 AM (#278713)
Subject: Road to Mandalay
From: John J

Anybody got the words to 'On the road to Mandalay'? There are two versions out there, one (I suspect the original) which most people know about, and the version I want, a sort of folkie version. Any help most welcome. Ta lots, John (in Manchester)


16 Aug 00 - 08:21 AM (#278718)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Road to Mandalay
From: P05139

Is that the song about Nellie the Elephant?


16 Aug 00 - 08:40 AM (#278734)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Road to Mandalay
From: AndyG

Kipling's Road to Mandalay.
I'm not sure what a "Folkie" version of Kipling might be (other that Bellamy's Barrack Room Ballads).

AndyG


16 Aug 00 - 08:40 AM (#278735)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Road to Mandalay
From: bill\sables

There was a parody when the M1 was opened.

On the M1 Motorway
Where the flying Ton-Up's play
And the Lorries roar like thunder
On the M1 Motorway


16 Aug 00 - 08:51 AM (#278744)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Road to Mandalay
From: GUEST,John in Brisbane

The definitive words finally materialised at the very bottom of this thread http://www.mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=11643#87542

Regards John


16 Aug 00 - 09:04 AM (#278754)
Subject: Lyr Add: MANDALAY (Rudyard Kipling)
From: The Walrus at work

MANDALAY

By the old Moulmein Pagoda, lookin' eastward to the sea,
There's a Burma girl a-settin', and I know she thinks o' me;
For the wind is in the palm-trees, and the temple-bells they say:
"Come you back, you British soldier; come you back to Mandalay!"
Come you back to Mandalay,
Where the old Flotilla lay:
Can't you 'ear their paddles chunkin' from Rangoon to Mandalay?
On the road to Mandalay,
Where the flyin'-fishes play,
An' the dawn comes up like thunder outer China 'crost the Bay!

'Er petticoat was yaller an' 'er little cap was green,
An' 'er name was Supi-yaw-lat -- jes' the same as Theebaw's Queen,
An' I seed her first a-smokin' of a whackin' white cheroot,
An' a-wastin' Christian kisses on an 'eathen idol's foot:
Bloomin' idol made o'mud --
Wot they called the Great Gawd Budd --
Plucky lot she cared for idols when I kissed 'er where she stud!
On the road to Mandalay . . .

When the mist was on the rice-fields an' the sun was droppin' slow,
She'd git 'er little banjo an' she'd sing "Kulla-lo-lo!"
With 'er arm upon my shoulder an' 'er cheek agin' my cheek
We useter watch the steamers an' the hathis pilin' teak.
Elephints a-pilin' teak
In the sludgy, squdgy creek,
Where the silence 'ung that 'eavy you was 'arf afraid to speak!
On the road to Mandalay . . .

But that's all shove be'ind me -- long ago an' fur away,
An' there ain't no 'busses runnin' from the Bank to Mandalay;
An' I'm learnin' 'ere in London what the ten-year soldier tells:
"If you've 'eard the East a-callin', you won't never 'eed naught else."
No! you won't 'eed nothin' else
But them spicy garlic smells,
An' the sunshine an' the palm-trees an' the tinkly temple-bells;
On the road to Mandalay . . .

I am sick o' wastin' leather on these gritty pavin'-stones,
An' the blasted Henglish drizzle wakes the fever in my bones;
Tho' I walks with fifty 'ousemaids outer Chelsea to the Strand,
An' they talks a lot o' lovin', but wot do they understand?
Beefy face an' grubby 'and --
Law! wot do they understand?
I've a neater, sweeter maiden in a cleaner, greener land!
On the road to Mandalay . . .

Ship me somewheres east of Suez, where the best is like the worst,
Where there aren't no Ten Commandments an' a man can raise a thirst;
For the temple-bells are callin', an' it's there that I would be --
By the old Moulmein Pagoda, looking lazy at the sea;
On the road to Mandalay,
Where the old Flotilla lay,
With our sick beneath the awnings when we went to Mandalay!
On the road to Mandalay,
Where the flyin'-fishes play,
An' the dawn comes up like thunder outer China 'crost the Bay!

(Lifted from :-http://www.poetryloverspage.com/poets/kipling/kipling_ind.html )

Hopefully, this will come out properly (for once).

Good luck.

Walrus


16 Aug 00 - 11:59 AM (#278873)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Road to Mandalay
From: GMT

Great post Walrus. Has anyone heard Ken Dodds version ?
Gary


16 Aug 00 - 12:04 PM (#278875)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Road to Mandalay
From: John J

Thanks Walrus! That's the one. Now all I've got to do is learn it! Thanks again! John


16 Aug 00 - 09:09 PM (#279239)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Road to Mandalay
From: Susan A-R

John Roberts and Tony Barrand have done a great recording of Kipling Songs, including that one. I'm having a great time listening to it while I do kitchen drudgery.


16 Aug 00 - 10:48 PM (#279295)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Road to Mandalay
From: alison

I always thought it was the

"there's a litlle green eyed idol to the east of Katmandu....."

Morecambe and Wise (or possibly the 2 Ronnies) have a lot to answer for..... *grin*

slainte

alison


17 Aug 00 - 03:30 AM (#279410)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Road to Mandalay
From: GMT

The 2 Ronnies Alison. There must be a dozen tunes where their words pop into my head rather than the proper ones.

Gary


17 Aug 00 - 03:38 AM (#279412)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Road to Mandalay
From: Steve Parkes

Well, well ... in the good old days we used to use Mandalay to close the club at the Songsmiths (Fitter's Arms) in Walsall. Not that we wanted to sing it, but everyone used to insist. 'Last night I dreamt I went back and sang "Mandalay"' ...

The published song version has only the first second and last verses (with some liberties taken in verse two, I think); that's the way Peter Dawson recorded it, and it's plenty long enough for most people!

Ken Dodd's version was actually Billy Benett's version from the twenties or thirties, but I can't bring it to mind right now.

Alison, you're thinking of 'The green eye of the little yellow god' by Melvin Hayes. There are two or three 'standard' comic versions, or presentations rather, of this; it's a shame nobody does it straight (except me, I do!) any more, as it's quite good, especially if you haven't heard it before and don't know the ending.

Steve


17 Aug 00 - 10:08 AM (#279567)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Road to Mandalay
From: GUEST,Bob Schwarer

Take a listen to the John Roberts & Tony Barrand CD "Naulakha Redux" It's a collection of 16 Rudyard Kipling songs. Most of the songs are credited to Peter Bellamy.

Bellamy's tune to "The Road to Mandalay" is also on The Friends of Fiddler's Green CD of the same name. Fiidler's Green is Ian Robb, Grit Laskin and 5 more. A nice CD.

Bob S.


18 Aug 00 - 11:08 PM (#280570)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Road to Mandalay
From: Susan A-R

Yes Bob S, that's the one. There is some Wonderful material on that one.


27 Jul 04 - 08:24 PM (#1235175)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Road to Mandalay
From: Charley Noble

Jeff Warner sang the Peter Bellamy version of this song the other night at the Chocolate Church in Bath, ME. I felt like I could listen to it all evening.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble


28 Jul 04 - 02:41 AM (#1235339)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Road to Mandalay
From: GUEST,weerover

From what i remember, Bellamy's version uses the tune "10,000 Miles Away"

wr.


28 Jul 04 - 12:37 PM (#1235602)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Road to Mandalay
From: Dave Bryant

I think that the original setting of this poem was made by Oley Speaks, but Henry Handel Richardson (pseudonym of Ethel Florence Lindesay Robertson) is also credited with one. Robbie Williams of course also produced a song of the same title, but with completely different lyrics.

I assume that the "folk version" is the setting By Peter Bellamy which unlike the Speaks one uses the whole Kipling poem.


28 Jul 04 - 06:27 PM (#1235879)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Road to Mandalay
From: Joe_F

The text given by the Walrus, as well as the one here, has "lookin' eastward to the sea" in the first line, whereas _Rudyard Kipling's Verse: Definitive Edition_ (Doubleday, 1940, p. 416) has "lookin' lazy at the sea" both there and in the last stanza. The "eastward" reading is extremely common, and it would be interesting to know where it came from, in that it adds to the geographical perplexity of this song, which has been much argued over.


28 Jul 04 - 08:26 PM (#1235958)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Road to Mandalay
From: Q (Frank Staplin)

The question was raised by Joe F. in a previous thread, 11643 (linked at top). No one seems to have a copy of the first printing of the poem, so I am safe in posting this explanation.

Kipling was 3 1/2 sheets to the wind when he wrote the poem long after he left the scene of his youthful indiscretions and confused east with west. When he sobered up, he sent it off without proof-reading. After it came out, an editor happened to look at a map and changed it to lazy. 'Lazy' reads better than either eastward or westward.
The editor considered other changes, such as replacing her 'little banjo', which made the poem sound like something done by Foster when he was in his cups, with an 'ukulele, but gave that up since Kipling's writings were unlikely to survive to another edition anyway.


29 Jul 04 - 07:15 AM (#1236216)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Road to Mandalay
From: GUEST,Ooh-Aah

How wrong can you be - like that fellow who turned down the Beatles.


09 Feb 12 - 05:50 PM (#3305086)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: On the Road to Mandalay (Kipling)
From: GUEST

I remember Dody's version; he had a backpack with saucepands etc that clanged as he moved, and a false leg on his belt with chich he'd do a "three-legged" dance. Been trying to find a clip of it for, oh, years!


09 Feb 12 - 08:15 PM (#3305132)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: On the Road to Mandalay (Kipling)
From: Charley Noble

If you'd like to enjoy the view from the old Moulmein Pagoda: Click here for view!

The Pagoda's actual name is the Kyaikthanlan Pagoda, overlooking Moulmein Harbour in Burma.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble


09 Feb 12 - 08:55 PM (#3305141)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: On the Road to Mandalay (Kipling)
From: Q (Frank Staplin)

Moulmein now known as Mawlamyine (Mawlamyaing); main seaport in SE Burma.
Here is a current photograph of the pagoda:
http://www.mawlamyine.com


10 Feb 12 - 02:52 AM (#3305183)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: On the Road to Mandalay (Kipling)
From: Keith A of Hertford

Wow.
It's real.
Thanks guys.


10 Feb 12 - 03:22 AM (#3305197)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: On the Road to Mandalay (Kipling)
From: Keith A of Hertford

However, The Burma girl is not "lookin lazy."
She is gazing "eastward to the sea" where she had seen her soldier depart.


10 Feb 12 - 08:18 AM (#3305305)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: On the Road to Mandalay (Kipling)
From: Charley Noble

Q-

Thanks for the current view of the Pagoda.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble


10 Feb 12 - 09:11 AM (#3305341)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: On the Road to Mandalay (Kipling)
From: Keith A of Hertford

Here are images of "the old flotilla," elephants piling teak, and Theebaw, King of Burma.
http://www.kipling.org.uk/rg_mandalay1.htm


10 Feb 12 - 10:58 AM (#3305383)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: On the Road to Mandalay (Kipling)
From: Charley Noble

Keith-

Nice Kipling reference website.

Charley Noble


10 Feb 12 - 03:22 PM (#3305561)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: On the Road to Mandalay (Kipling)
From: Q (Frank Staplin)

Good close-up of the Pagoda, Keith. The one I linked shows too much construction in front of it.
Kipling's poem has her "looking lazy at the sea...." Not sure what you mean by eastward. She would be looking across Karan State to Thailand.

Mandalay is inland to the north, a long way up river (Irrawaddy) from Rangoon (old spelling).


This map shows Moulmein, Rangoon (across the bay from Mandelay) and Mandelay:
http://images.nationmaster.com/images/motw/middle_east_and_asia/burma.gif


10 Feb 12 - 03:56 PM (#3305582)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: On the Road to Mandalay (Kipling)
From: Keith A of Hertford

I only learned from that site that he changed the first verse to "looking lazy."
I only knew it as "looking Eastward" which apparantly was the original.
I have always sung "looking Eastward" in v1 and "looking lazy" in last verse.


10 Feb 12 - 04:24 PM (#3305595)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: On the Road to Mandalay (Kipling)
From: Q (Frank Staplin)

My Departmental Ditties and Barrack Room Ballads has "lookin' lazy." 1890 reprint. Was there an earlier one?


10 Feb 12 - 04:28 PM (#3305596)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: On the Road to Mandalay (Kipling)
From: Charley Noble

Keith-

One can follow the discussion of "looking Eastward" or "looking lazy" back and forth. In draft I believe it was "looking Eastward" but the editors had problems with that and somehow it got changed. For some reason, the singers persist in singing the line "looking Eastward" and it's true if you look Eastward far enough you end up looking at what's West.

Kipling agreed to the change and why argue with that.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble


10 Feb 12 - 05:08 PM (#3305620)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: On the Road to Mandalay (Kipling)
From: Q (Frank Staplin)

Which editors??
First edition, Lahore, Civil and Military Gazette Press. Only 350 copies. Not seen. 1886. Dunno if this had "eastward" or "lazy." Copies a few hundred to a few thousand dollars. They also printed a second edition, 1887.

Thacker, Spink Co., Calcutta, 1886; later London, 2-7th eds, 1890-1892. Second edition, 1886, had five new poems and alterations to three. Third edition, 1888, has 10 additional poems. Fourth Edition had additional poems.Fifth ed. dated 1890. The seventh ed. I think added more.

London, U. S. etc. Other editors. I assume all of these were "lazy."


10 Feb 12 - 05:29 PM (#3305639)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: On the Road to Mandalay (Kipling)
From: Q (Frank Staplin)

Found this- Departmental Ditties..... John Lovel, New York: ".....the first book edition (english of American) of the Ballads (including 'Gunga Din,' "Danny Deever," and 'Mandalay')...

http://www.kipling.org.uk/facts_collecting.htm

The poem written in 1890(?) and does not appear before that date.


10 Feb 12 - 05:36 PM (#3305644)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: On the Road to Mandalay (Kipling)
From: Q (Frank Staplin)

The printer is Lovell (two l's). Date 1890


10 Feb 12 - 06:05 PM (#3305656)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: On the Road to Mandalay (Kipling)
From: pdq

Lawrence Tibbett did a spirited rendition of this song. I have it on a 12" 78 RMP record.

There is a video of him singing it on YouTube.


10 Feb 12 - 08:05 PM (#3305701)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: On the Road to Mandalay (Kipling)
From: Lighter

The Kipling website identifies "lookin' eastward" as "the original version" in stanza 1 :

http://www.kipling.org.uk/rg_mandalay1.htm

"Lookin' lazy" seems always to have been the phrase in the final stanza.


10 Feb 12 - 08:22 PM (#3305706)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: On the Road to Mandalay (Kipling)
From: Charley Noble

Lighter-

Good to have you weighing in on this.

So none of my Kipling anthologies have the phrase "looking eastward" in them. Which edition did the phrase appear?

Charley Noble


10 Feb 12 - 09:23 PM (#3305736)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: On the Road to Mandalay (Kipling)
From: Q (Frank Staplin)

Lighter, Keith linked the Kipling website previously. If you click on "poem" to the right, the first verse has "lazy...." So naturally I assumed etc. etc.
It does give the information that the poem was published in the Scots Observer, 1890.
I must admit that I didn't read any more of the article, only looked at the pictures.

Scroll way down, and the note appears:
"lookin' lazy at the sea 'lookin' eastward at the sea' in the original version but corrected by Kipling when it was pointed out to him that Moulmein had no view of the sun rising over the Bay of Bengal, still less over China. See the notes below on the chorus."

Farther on, "As Kipling later observed [other points of jumbled geography] in the poem]: "Had I opened the chorus of the song with 'Oh' instead of 'On the road.' etc., it might have shown that the song was a sort of general mix-up of the singer's Far-Eastern memories against a background of the Bay of Bengal as seen at dawn from a troop-ship taking him there. But 'On' in this case was more singable than 'Oh.' That simple explanation may stand as a warning.""

Perhaps we should "take a warning" that our insistence on ferreting out details should not get in the way of our enjoyment of the song.


10 Feb 12 - 09:30 PM (#3305739)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: On the Road to Mandalay (Kipling)
From: Lighter

I believe that the dates in the 1880s that Q cites are for Kipling's first collection, "Departmental Ditties."

"Mandalay" first appeared on page 124 of The Scots Observer (June 21, 1890), as No. 10 of Kipling's series of "Barrack-Room Ballads." The first line reads,

"By the old Moulmein Pagoda, lookin' eastward to the sea."

Details for pedants only:

The same reading appears in the first book publication, p. 92 of "Departmental Ditties, Barrack-Room ballads, and Other Poems" (N.Y.: United States Book Company, Successors to John W. Lovell Company, 1890). The final stanza, like that of the Observer version, has "lookin' lazy."

Acc. to K's recent editor, Andrew Lycett, the book was first pub'd in N.Y.C. because K's "best friend in London was the American publisher Wolcott Balestier." Balestier was London agent for the United States Book Co.


10 Feb 12 - 10:06 PM (#3305743)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: On the Road to Mandalay (Kipling)
From: Lighter

Q, our posts crossed.

Wasn't there some other famous writer who thought you could visit a seashore in Bohemia?

"Bill" or "Will" somebody, I think.


11 Feb 12 - 02:36 AM (#3305792)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: On the Road to Mandalay (Kipling)
From: Keith A of Hertford

I like "eastward" in v1.
Kipling liked it too.
He changed it to a lesser version to appease pedants.
It is an old soldier's imperfect reminiscences, not a Geography lesson.


11 Feb 12 - 09:33 AM (#3305952)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: On the Road to Mandalay (Kipling)
From: Charley Noble

"A woman is only a woman but a good cigar is a smoke!"

Whatever!

Charley Noble


11 Feb 12 - 02:43 PM (#3306117)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: On the Road to Mandalay (Kipling)
From: Q (Frank Staplin)

For pedantic pedants only-
Bohemia. Croatia Slovenia bordered the Adriatic. When Bohemia was part of the Hapsburg Monarchy (c. 1815), Bohemia thus was part of a country that bordered a sea.

The poets technically were correct.


13 Feb 12 - 08:21 AM (#3307366)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: On the Road to Mandalay (Kipling)
From: Snuffy

Kansas is also part of a country that borders a sea: it is therefore correct to speak of the coast of Kansas?


13 Feb 12 - 01:54 PM (#3307849)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: On the Road to Mandalay (Kipling)
From: Q (Frank Staplin)

Gee, Snuffy, Kansas has ports on the Arkansas and Missouri Rivers, which feed into the Mississippi and thus flow into the Gulf of Mexico. Is Kansas thus a maritime region?




(OK, Snuffy, point taken.)


13 Feb 12 - 02:25 PM (#3307870)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: On the Road to Mandalay (Kipling)
From: tonyteach1

I have the Peter Dawson version of the music and used to sing it a lot until someone told me it was racist and I was a racist to sing it.


13 Feb 12 - 03:20 PM (#3307891)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: On the Road to Mandalay (Kipling)
From: Q (Frank Staplin)

Oh, dear, teach- Just for you (1st draft)

By the smoky Mersey Dockland, lookin' cross-eyed at the sea,
Tere's a limey chit a-settin', and I know she thinks o' me;
For the wind is in the lime trees, and St. Mary's bells thay say:
"Come you back, you Gurkha soldier, come you back to Liverpool!"
Come you back to Liverpool
Where the old flotiller lay
Can't you 'ear the cranes a hummin' from Wapping to Bath Street?
On the road to Liverpool,
Where the rummies set and drool,
And the clouds come rollin' in from Thule far away!


Her drawers were dingy gray, and 'er little arse was lean,
An' 'er name was Elizabeth, jes' the same as Blighty's queen,
And I seed her first a-puffin' on a Players Navy Cut,
An' a-wastin Hindu kisses on a Christian idol's foot:
Bloomin' marble idol
Wot they called Jesus Christ
Dash all she cared for idols when I kissed 'er where she....
On the road to Liverpool....


13 Feb 12 - 04:56 PM (#3307947)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: On the Road to Mandalay (Kipling)
From: Lighter

The guy wants to ditch London and head back to Burma to spend the rest of his life with his true love.

Obviously he got way over his racism.

Though not his tendency to idealize the exotic. And those are just two things that make it a great poem.


13 Feb 12 - 05:20 PM (#3307961)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: On the Road to Mandalay (Kipling)
From: Charley Noble

Q-

Where did you dig up that splendid parody?

Charley Noble


14 Feb 12 - 12:40 PM (#3308401)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: On the Road to Mandalay (Kipling)
From: Artful Codger

Idealizing the exotic gave us another classic: "Lydia, oh Lydia, say, have you met Lydia? Lydia the tattooed lady..."


14 Feb 12 - 01:24 PM (#3308430)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: On the Road to Mandalay (Kipling)
From: Lighter

Tattooed ladies are far less exotic today.


14 Feb 12 - 02:08 PM (#3308469)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: On the Road to Mandalay (Kipling)
From: Q (Frank Staplin)

Charley, put together from the refuse in my brain. Open to all for revision, additions, etc.
I remember some parodied lines my father used to sing, so others may have "done the foul deed" multiple times.


14 Feb 12 - 02:25 PM (#3308481)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: On the Road to Mandalay (Kipling)
From: Q (Frank Staplin)

British Army soldiers parodied the poem in their song relating to actions in the Sudan.

On the road to Dongolay
Where the dying camels lay
And the sun comes down like hell-fire
And grows hotter day by day.

Excerpt given in introduction to a chapter in Roy McLaren, 1978, Canadians on the Nile, 1882-1898, Univ. British Columbia Press.

I could not find the whole, but I have a couple of British Army songbooks to look at yet.


14 Feb 12 - 02:56 PM (#3308504)
Subject: Lyr. Add: ON THE ROAD TO DONGOLAY
From: Q (Frank Staplin)

Lyr. Add: ON THE ROAD TO DONGOLAY

In a little town called London,
Far away, and o'er the sea,
There's my own best girl a' waiting,
And I know she waits for me.
How I'd like to spend an evening
In the same old cheery way,
But there ain't no songs nor suppers
On the road to Dongolay

On the road to Dongolay
Where the ancient railway lay,
How they toiled, and moiled and sweated,
Just to make one mile a day.
Chorus:
On the road to Dongolay
Where the dying camels lay,
And the sun struck down like hell-fire
And gfrew hotter day by day.
2
Shif me somewhere south of Sarrass,
Where the medal roll begins,
And aman wipes out his sins,
And there ain't no wine nor women,
And a man wipes out his sins.
I begin to think it's gospel
What I've often heard them say,
That when once you tast Nile water
You won't never go away.

On the road to Dongolay, etc.

Literary Notes, Star, Putange 5699, 19 Whiringa-a-nuki 1896, page 2.
"Correspondent, "Canterbury Times," London, August 21.
From another issue:

Here's a health and best of luck, boys,
To you all in the ExA., [?]
From Sirdar down to Drummer,
May we get to Dongolay!
With a little help from England,
And no one to say us nay,
We'll spend a merry Xmas
Further south than Dongolay!

On the road to Dongolay,
Where the ancient railway lay,
As we toiled, moiled and sweated-
Just to make one mile a day-
Chorus- On the road to Dongolay, etc.

Seems to me that these rhymes have been altered for a gentile readership.

A fragment from a different parody-
There's a chance for Tommy Atkins
And the Sikh to have some fun
We take the work and finish
What the Gippy's well begun,
For there's still a bit of country
Lies stretching south, away
From Dongola to Dafur,
On the road to UGAN-DAY.

Evening Post vol. LII, 28 Nov. 1896, p. 2. Rhodesian Rhymes.


14 Feb 12 - 03:34 PM (#3308528)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: On the Road to Mandalay (Kipling)
From: Q (Frank Staplin)

...genteel..., that is.

There seems to be a parody, On the road to Mandeville (location of the asylum for the insane in Louisiana.


14 Feb 12 - 04:28 PM (#3308550)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: On the Road to Mandalay (Kipling)
From: Charley Noble

Outrageous!

Obviously "The Road to Paroday" was not paved with good intentions.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble


14 Feb 12 - 06:02 PM (#3308596)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: On the Road to Mandalay (Kipling)
From: Q (Frank Staplin)

Billie Bennett parody of Mandalay:
http://www.epicure.demon.co.uk/mandalay.html

The chorus-
On the road to Mandalay
Where you see the fried fishes play.
They bring their own chips with them
When it's early-closing day.

I can't bring myself to post this parody. One verse:

There's a farm on the horizon Looking eastward to Siam
We could have some ham and eggs there, if they had some eggs and ham
They've only got one hen, they call her "Mandy" by the way
They found out she's a cock- That's why they can't make Mandy lay.


14 Feb 12 - 06:23 PM (#3308607)
Subject: Lyr. Add: On the Road Amanda Lay
From: Q (Frank Staplin)

ON THE ROAD AMANDA LAY
Airfarcewon, sung by Frank Sinatra

She kinda looked like Abe Vigoda
Had a nose like Jimmy "D"
But that busty broad from Burma
Was a body, Yessiree!

I was cruisin' past some palm trees
On my happy Honda way
When I almost dropped my slurpee
On the Road Amanda Lay
On the Road Amanda Lay

On the Road Amanda Lay-ay
Asked, "Could we?" She said "Okay."
Thunder struck with awe and wonder,
As her love she tossed my way..

On the Road Amanda Lay
Yes, it was my lucky day
So I fooled around and funned her
She was Gothic in her way.

It was someplace east of L. A.
Where our passion was dispersed.
Disobeyed all ten commandments,
But I think that chick was cursed
Cause across the road a'runnin'
Came a big dude packin' heat
He was yellin' and a shootin'
Bullets flyin' at my feet.

On the Road Amanda Lay-ay
Guess her luck ran out that day
Quickly hopped back in my Honda
And like Nascar zoomed away..

On the Road Amanda Lay-ay
It's too bad but what's to say?
Just glad I'm not six feet under
Where soon will Amanda Lay..

On the Road Amanda Lay.. ...


http://www.amiright.com/parody/60s/franksinatra55.shtml

This site has parodies and misheard lyrics.


14 Feb 12 - 06:37 PM (#3308613)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: On the Road to Mandalay (Kipling)
From: Charley Noble

"That's why they can't make Mandy lay."

Eggs-actly!

Charley Noble


14 Feb 12 - 06:41 PM (#3308614)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: On the Road to Mandalay (Kipling)
From: Q (Frank Staplin)

Charley, that's roadkill.