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08 Feb 07 - 09:07 AM (#1961083) Subject: Lyr Add: They've All Got a Wife But Me From: GUEST,Bob Coltman One of my great favorites. Gus Meade says in Country Music Sources that it was written by Ben Dodge c. 1877. However he also cites "They've All Got a Mate But Me," w&m Gus Williams? c. 1876, which was recorded by Frank Crumit but never issued. One folk rendition of "Mate" is "Fox and Hare," an English song found on a single thread in the Mudcat message archive but not among the songs in the DT. This one is a classic American performance, genial and fun. (I have a second version I'll post in a separate message.) THEY'VE ALL GOT A WIFE BUT ME ^^ As recorded by Branch and Coleman (Bernice Coleman and Ernest Branch), OK 45556, Atlanta 10/27/31. A story true I'll tell to you of the troubles of my life, Though in love I've been like many other men, I never could find a wife, The girls are shy, I can't tell why, oh sad, it is too late, I've tried and tried till I've almost died, and still I can't find a mate. Cho: There's the monkey and the dogs, the turtles and the frogs, The fish that swim in the sea, The pretty little squirrel with a tail in a curl, They've all got a wife but me. When first in love with [a turtle?] dove, it was with a gal named Lize, She'd a nose hard to beat and Number Ten feet, and a pair of googoo eyes, I offered my hand, and a [future?} grand, what do you suppose, She said very cool she wasn't no fool, and she turned up her big red nose. Cho2: The chickens and the cats, the weasel and the rats, The skeeter and the bumblebee, The cunning little lizard and the naughty old buzzard, They've all got a wife but me. My gal number two was a gal named Sue who clerked in a dollar store, Each day I dressed in all my best and wandered by her door, I wrote her a letter, I oughta knowed better, asked her to share my lot, Next day I met a feller and he hit me in the smeller, that was the answer I got. Cho3: There's the horse and the steer, the goat and the deer, The [giraffe?], the walrus and the flea, A fuzzy old coon and the ugly baboon, They've all got a wife but me. |
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08 Feb 07 - 09:13 AM (#1961090) Subject: RE: Lyr Add: They've All Got a Wife But Me From: GUEST,Bob Coltman Even before I ever knew the version above, I'd heard the following from a singing friend, Jim Butler, a New Englander who was then visiting me from Vancouver but now for a long time a resident of Massachusetts. Knowing his usual sources, and going by the title town, I'd say it must be rural and from England. The second verse diverges pretty far from the theme! THE TOTTENHAM TOAD As sung by Jim Butler, Pacific Grove, CA 1961. Oh, the Tottenham toad came a-trottin' up the road, With his feet all a-swimming in the sea, Pretty little squirrel with her tail in a curl, They've all got married but me. So I got me a wife to join my life, But soon I wished I was dead, In about two weeks we had a little quarel, And she pulled all the hair out of me head. (Repeat first verse.) |