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

01 Feb 05 - 05:30 AM (#1395396)
Subject: Lyr Req: Things at Home - Nurse's Song??
From: Joe Offer

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-

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01 Feb 05 - 07:56 PM (#1396293)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Things at Home - Nurse's Song??
From: Joe Offer

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

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01 Feb 05 - 10:29 PM (#1396452)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Things at Home - Nurse's Song??
From: Sorcha

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

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02 Feb 05 - 12:13 AM (#1396533)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Things at Home - Nurse's Song??
From: Q (Frank Staplin)

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.

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02 Feb 05 - 02:10 AM (#1396591)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Things at Home - Nurse's Song??
From: masato sakurai

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

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02 Feb 05 - 02:16 AM (#1396593)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Things at Home - Nurse's Song??
From: Joe Offer

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

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02 Feb 05 - 03:58 PM (#1396986)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Things at Home - Nurse's Song??
From: Charmion

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".

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02 Feb 05 - 06:06 PM (#1397157)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Things at Home - Nurse's Song??
From: Joe Offer

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-

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02 Feb 05 - 06:25 PM (#1397172)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Things at Home - Nurse's Song??
From: masato sakurai

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.]

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02 Feb 05 - 06:57 PM (#1397206)
Subject: Lyr Add: LIFE PRESENTS A DISMAL PICTURE
From: masato sakurai

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.

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02 Feb 05 - 07:38 PM (#1397257)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Things at Home - Nurse's Song??
From: Snuffy

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

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