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OSCAR BRAND is director of folk music for New York's municipal radio station, WNYC, He has done a half hour program every Sunday since 1945, His records of bawdy songs are on sale in leading shops across the country. A Canadian by birth, he is a U.S. Army veteran and has been seen on many TV programs including Omnibus. His composition, "A Guy Is A Guy," sold a million records for Columbia. He has sung at Town Hall and Carnegie Hall, and been called "one of America's best folk singers" by the New York Times.

Ribald backroom songs with off-color words are product of U. S. culture and British heritage, insists folk singer who has made hobby out of collecting and singing them.

By Oscar Brand

BREATHES there a man with soul so dead that he has never repeated to himself one off-color limerick? Or sung alone or in congenial company the verses of at least one bawdy song? I don't think so, for the bawdy song and the naughty limerick are universal in the English-speaking world, and wherever you go you can find them.

The fact is that the bawdy song is really a distinguished product of our culture and British heritage, tracing its ancestry back to the free-and-easy days of yore, and counting among its singers our finest poets and statesmen. Some of the songs contain lines of matchless beauty and clarity, and though they may be changed in melody and verse from century to century, they have lived for hundreds of years and are still as young in heart as the collegians who love so to sing them.

In preparing my record albums of "Bawdy Songs and Backroom Ballads," I had no difficulty in gathering my material. Most of them were being sung around tavern backrooms, fraternity smokers, barracks and campus dormitories. If I forgot a verse, I had only to ask at random and someone would surely supply the missing rhymes.

There are two versions of every song. There is the clean version, and then there is the version everybody knows. Perhaps that's the reason there was so much secret laughter not too long ago when Dinah Shore recorded "Sweet Violets." Everybody knew the (Continued on page 51)

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IN DEFENSE OF BAWDY BALLADS

(Continued from page 9)

"other version"—the one that contained such
deathless verses as:

My wife she died in the bathtub
She died of a terrible fit
And to fulfill her very last wishes
She was buried in three feet of . . .

Shweet violets, shweeter than all the roses
Covered all over from head to foot
Covered all over with shnow.

When the Hit Parade came up with "Never Been Kissed," there were many who objected to the sissification of the original. "The Thing" rang up profits on jukeboxes all over the world, but students of great literature remembered it when it was still "The Chandler's Wife." They wistfully recalled that the "Knock, Knock, Knock" tag was once "Bang, Bang, Bang," and that the moral of the old song still held true:

All you married men, take heed
If ever you go to town
If you must leave your woman alone
'Tis wise to tie her down

But if you would be wiser still
Just set her down on the floor
And give her so much of the bang bang bang
She doesn't want any more"

And so we know that such popular songs as "Anymore" come from such bawdy ballads as "The Little Ball of Yarn," that "I Want to Be Near You" was once "Aupres De Ma Blonde," and that many another popular favorite comes from some older bawdy folk song. But the question to be answered is, "Where do the bawdy songs come from?" And the related question follows, "Who sings them?"

Some critics, whose minds are narrow enough to slip under locked doors, believe that Satan himself originated the bawdy songs. But, of course, these same individuals would ascribe to Lucifer the collected works of James Joyce, Henry Miller, Edmund Wilson, Geoffrey Chaucer, Honore Balzac, Rabelais and a host of other famed poets and authors. The fact is that Old Scratch simply doesn't deserve credit for penning such pristine and beautifully shaped lines as:

With artful eye and cunning look
He led her to a shady nook
She oped her eyes and out she took
The pride of all Jerusalem.

Heigh-ho, Kafoozalum
Harlot of Jerusalem
Prostitute of ill repute
Daughter of the Baba.

One answer to the question comes from the logical assumption that such well-phrased creations must be the work of talented hands. Thus, in my researches, cultural touts have sidled up to confide that Rudyard Kipling was the true author of "The Bastard King of England," and as a consequence was never knighted, in spite of the fact that many feel he should have been knighted for that achievement alone, if indeed he did compose the ditty.

It is a matter of record that Mark Twain had written "The Farting Contest," although it never enjoyed the popularity of "Huckleberry Finn." The story of "Bella" who suffered a fate worse than death and death, too, was to be found in George Orwell's "Down and Out." Even Ogden Nash has been credited with some ribald songs, including "The Three Prominent Bastards":

Our parents forgot to get married
Our parents forgot to get wed
Did a wedding bell chime, it was always the time
Our parents were somewhere in bed.

Thanks to our kind, loving parents
We are kings in the land of the free
The banker, the broker, the Washington joker,
Three prominent bastards are we.

If this apocrypha should be true, it gives us the beginning of a clue pointing to the authorship of some of our bawdier songs. But whence cometh the other thousands of verses and titles that comfort us in our daily life and scandalize the Comstocks?

In 1954, a legal question forced me to trace one of these songs to its source. In those days, the top pop-song was "A Guy Is A Guy" recorded by Doris Day on Columbia Records. The label gave the composer's name as "Oscar Brand," but, believe me, it was a lie. I had simply dry-cleaned an infantry song I learned as "A Gob Is A Slob." When ten litigants claimed that they had each independently written "A Guy Is A Guy," I was forced to prove it was in the public domain. You may remember some of the key lines:

I got into bed like a good girl should
He followed me into bed like I knew he would
Because a gob is a slob wherever he may be
Listen while I tell you what this sailor done to me.

A helpful investigator found an early

51

ancestor in a fine old book called "Pills to Purge Melancholy." This was a collection of "Ancient Songs," dated 1719. And one of the "Ancient Songs," dated 1719, was "I Went to the Alehouse" with the refrain:

A knave is a knave in every degree
Listen and I'll tell you how a knave served me.

I won the case and a better understanding of the question, "Where do the songs come from?"

Some simple folk singer, or complicated wit had created the song for the amusement and edification of his neighbors. Some other wit had heard it, learned it by ear, and repeated it for his own audience. Faulty memory, or a desire to change the material to fit his private taste or public audience, encouraged the new singer to change the song. Sometimes, the fine old song had to be laundered to fit the refined taste of the upper class. In England, schoolbooks print this song:

We married at the church next day
Fair maid is a lily-o
She smiled at me as if to say
Come to me, quietly, do not do me injury,
Gently, Johnny, my jingalo.

This greatly surprised Englishmen who had
been singing the same song with the verse:
She lie with me all in the hay
Fair maid is a lily-o
Her eyes were closed as she did say,
Come to me, quietly, do not do me injury,
Gently, Johnny, my jingalo.

As a result of the changes caused by custom and usage, many differing versions of the same song could be heard at the same period. For instance, Robert Burns rewrote many a "bothy ballad," popularizing a sedate version of "Green Grow the Rashes" while other Scotsmen still sang:

Green grow the rashes, o
Green grow the rashes, o
The sweetest bed that e'er I got
Was the bellies of the lasses, o.

The older "Coming Through the Rye" said nothing about such mild amusements as "kissing," and the better-known version of "John Anderson, My Jo" used far more robust language than the tender rewrite we sing today:

See that you grip me fast, John,
Until that I cry, Oh,
Your back shall crack, e'er I cry, Slack,
John Anderson, my jo.

Knowing the origin of the old songs answered the second question: "Who sings them?" Aside from professional folk singers and entertainers, the list of chantymen included singers of the Declaration of Independence, Presidents, Vice-Presidents, boot-blacks, and Secretaries of State. Most of them sang unaccompanied, but Lincoln's Grand Marshal at Gettysburg, Ward Lamon, used a five-string banjo to keep the melancholy soldiers amused. It is reported that one of our most distinguished contemporary jurists, Judge Learned Hand, once entertained Chief Justice Holmes with "The Good Ship Venus," whose mildest verse is:

The second mate was Morgan
By God, he was a Gorgon,
Nine times a day
Fine tunes he'd play
With his fingers on the organ.

It seems a shame that these fine songs, an important part of our culture, known to our most respected citizens, should be rarely heard except in conspiratorial surroundings. In Elizabethan England, such songs were in daily currency, just as our worst four-letter words were then in considerable usage. Many of the well-turned phrases found in Shakespeare's plays or in the works of Marlowe and Jonson, are now to be found only on lavatory walls or in bawdy songs. Today's taboos force the material into the guilty backrooms of the men's smoker, or into the vocabulary of the gutters. Every child knows:

Lulu had a baby
She named him Sunny Jim
Put him in the chamber pot
To learn him how to swim
Swam to the bottom, swam to the top
Lulu got excited and pulled him by the
Cocktail, ginger-ale five cents a glass . . .
etc.

Every child knows some wicked parody on a popular song or nursery rhyme. Consider the case of "John Peel." It was natural that Isaac Bickerstaffe's inoffensive hunting song should become the instigator of parodies more popular than the original. College men know many verses, and college women have verses far more violent than this sample:

The camel has a lot of fun
His night's complete when he is done
He always gets two humps for one
As he revels in the throes of fornication.

The bawdy song is still a living, breathing part of our culture, even if it has gone underground, and to the scholar who pursues his quest of knowledge in this field, there are always new surprises, fresh vistas of information to be discovered. For example, while seeking what I thought was the final verse of "The Little Ball of Yarn," I was informed that the verse I wanted was merely the next to last, and that the last verse was the best of all:

In my prison cell I sit
With my bathrobe in the shade
With the shadow of my nose upon thewalls
And the women as they pass
Thrust their hatpins up my ear
And the little mice play hopscotch with my toes.

As for limericks, which are often sung as verses to a simple melody, I know at least 500 of them, and I didn't make them up myself. The total number in circulation, not counting minor variations, must number thousands. In fact, the English-speaking world doesn't have a monopoly on these songs. I know five languages that have limericks on the theme:

A lady athletic and handsome
Got wedged in a sleeping room transom
When she offered much gold for release, she was told
The view is worth more than the ransom

It seems a pity that these matchless gems should be consigned to the dark corners and hushed huddles of our daily life. Perhaps there should be a course in Bawdy Songs at our leading universities, Harvard, for ex- ample, to preserve them. Until then, I shall record them in order to assure their survival. Who would willingly see lost and forgotton such deathless verses as these from "The Apprentice":

Your father and your mother in yonder room do lie
A-shagging one another, so why not you and I?
A-shagging and a wagging, without no fear nor doubt,
So roll me in your arms, love, and blow the candles out.

CHRIS COLUMBO

He knew the world was roundo;
His beard hung to the groundo;
That navigatin', calculatin' son of a gun Columbo!

In fourteen hundred ninety two,
a gob from old Ital-ee
Was walkin' through the street of
Spain, a peddlin' hot tamale.

He met the queen of Spain and said,
"Just give me ships and cargo
And hang me up until I'm dead if
I don't bring back Chicago."

He knew the world was roundo;
His beard hung to the groundo;
That navigatin', calculatin" son of a gun Columbo!

"Hey, take your time," says Isabel,
"and don't forget essentials.
Come with me to my boudoir,
I'll check up on your credentials."
She gave her guest no time for rest,
the pace was something wicked.
Why every hour on the clock,
she punched Columbo's ticket.

He knew the world was roundo;
His beard hung to the groundo;
That navigatin', calculatin' son of a
gun Columbo!

For 40 nights and 40 days,
they sailed the broad Atlantic.
Columbus and his lousy crew,
for want of gals was frantic.
When they spied a tart upon the
shore, off went coats and collars.
In 20 minutes by the clock,
she made ten thousand dollars!

He knew the world was roundo;
His beard hung to the groundo;
That navigatin', calculatin' son of a
gun Columbo!

Then with happy shouts, they ran
about and practiced conjugation
When they sailed they left behind,
ten times the population!

He knew the world was roundo;
His beard hung to the groundo;
That navigatin', calculatin' son of a
gun Columboooooo!

A GOB IS A SLOB

My mother told me not to talk to strangers in the street,
As years went by, remembering, I was never indiscreet.
But girls are girls and boys are boys
and boys and girls are fools.
They're all the same, so who's to blame?
But it's nature makes the rules!

Well, I walked down the street like a good girl should.
He followed me down the street like I knew he would,
Because a gob is a slob wherever he may be—
Listen, I'll tell you what the fellow did to me.

I walked to my house like a good girl should.
He followed me to my house like I knew he would,
Because a gob is a slob wherever he may be—
Listen while I tell you what the sailor did to me.

I ran up the stair like a frightened hare.
I even locked my bedroom door.
I turned to the bed, I almost fell over dead.
Somehow he sneaked right in before!

So I got into bed like a good girl should.
He followed me into bed like I knew he would,
Because a gob is a slob wherever he may be—
Listen I'll tell ya what this sailor did to me.

I pursed my lips, I tried to frown. But frowning's not my style.
I tried to pout, but what came out was a coy inviting smile.
I knew he would of had me, even if I had refused;
He didn't need encouragement, but what he got he used.

I got into bed like a good girl should.
He followed me into bed like I knew he would,
Because a gob is a slob wherever he may be—
Now listen while I tell ya what this sailor did to me.

I got me a time like a good girl should.
He got him a time like I knew he would,
Because a gob is a slob wherever he may be—
So listen while I tell ya what this sailor did to me.

He grabbed me tight and he switched off the light,
And he settled down to stay.
I would have said, "Please leave this bed."
But who the hell is built that way?

So I had me a child like a good girl should.
And he went off to sea like I knew he would,
Because a gob is a slob wherever he may be—
Now you heard the story of what this sailor did to me.

ROLLIN'
DOWN THE MOUNTAIN

In the hills of West Virginia lived a girl named Nancy Brown.
She was the finest filly for many miles around.
The deacon come a vistin' the valley from below;
He almost reached the summit but no further would she go.
And she come rollin' down the mountain,
Rollin' down the mountain.
She come rollin' down the mountain shouting "No!"
She didn't give the deacon that there thing that he was seekin'.
She remained as pure as West Virginia snow.

We'll, along come a trapper with his phrases sweet and kind.
Took Nancy up the mountain, but at last she read his mind.
And she come rollin' down the mountain,
Rollin' down the mountain.
She come rollin' down the mountain piggy-back.
She remained as I have stated

not one whit contaminated.
She remained as pure as pappy's applejack.

Well, along come a drummer and he wooed her with a song;
Took her to the mountain but she still knew right from wrong.

And she come rollin' down the mountain,
Rollin' down the mountain.
She come rollin' down the mountain breathing scorn.
And she left her bold companion to the coyotes in the canyon.
She remained as pure as West Virginia corn.

Well along come a city slicker with his hundred dollar bills;
Took Nancy in his Cadillac and kept her in the hills.
So she stayed up in the mountains,
Stayed up in the mountains.
Oh, she stayed up in the mountains all that night.
She returned next morning early, more a woman than a girly;
And her Pappy kicked the hussy out of sight.

Now she's livin' in the city, livin' in the city;
She is livin' in the city mighty swell.
She is dancin', she is dinin',
On her fanny she's reclinin',
And the West Virginia hills can go to hell!
And the West Virginia hills can
go to hell!

HER NAME WAS LIL
Well, her name was Lil and she was a beautee;
She lived in a house of ill reputee—
Gentlemen came from miles to see
Lillian in her deshabille.

She was comely and she was fair
And she had lovely golden hair—
But she drank too deep of the demon rum,
Smoked hashish and op-eye-um.

Well, day by day her cheeks grew thinner
For insufficient protein in her—
She grew deep hollows in her chest;
Why, she had to go around completely dressed!

Now, clothes may make a girl go far,
But they got no place on a fille de joie—
Lillian's troubles started when
She concealed her abdomen.

Well, she took to treatments in the sun,
And she drank up Scot's emul-shi-on—
Three times daily she ate yeast;
Still her clientele decreased.

For you must know her client-elly
Rested chiefly on her belly—
She rolled that thing like the deep Pacific;
It was something calorific.

So she went to the house physician,
To prescribe for her condition.
"Why, you have got," the doctor did say,
"Pernicious anem-eye-ay."

Well, Lillian lay in her dishonor;
She felt the devil's hand upon her.
She said, "My sins I now repent."
Said Satan, "That'll cost you fifty
cents."

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