Bell Bottom Trousers

[ D ]

Professor Emeritus Rowland Berthoff of Washington University, St. Louis, forwarded this text with the explanation that it was certainly learned while he served in the army during World War II, and may have been learned even earlier, at Oberlin College, Ohio, circa 1940.  It is close to the "A" text also dating from the same period and from college currency.

Once there was a barmaid who lived in Drury Lane;
The master he was kind to her, the mistress was the same.
Along came a sailor as drunk as he could be,
And he was the cause of all her misery.

Chorus:
Singing bell-bottom trousers and coats of navy blue,
He'll climb the rigging like his daddy used to do.

He asked her for a candle to light his way to bed;
He asked her for a kerchief to tie about his head.
Like an innocent little maiden, expecting no harm,
She jumped into the sailor's bed to keep the sailor warm.

Early in the morning, about the break of day,
He handed her a five-pound note, and with it he did say,
"Take this, my darling, for the misery I have done;
Maybe you'll have a daughter and maybe you'll have a son.
	If you have a daughter, bounce the darling on your knee;
	And if you have a son, send the bastard out to sea.

[ E ]

The Canfield collection, gathered in early 1926, has under the title of "The Servant Maid's Lament," a variant halfway between the "A" and "C" texts given in the second edition of this work.

When I was but a serving girl
Way down in New Orleans,
I had a mysterious happening,
That brought to me my shame.

I met up with sailor
Who'd just come back from sea
And that was the beginning 
Of all my misery.

Canfield wrote in the margins a variation of that stanza:

I met up with a sailor
Who'd just come back from France.
I knew he was a sailor 
By the buttons on his pants.

He asked me for a candle
To light his way to bed.
He asked me for a handkerchief
To tie around his head.

And like a foolish maiden,
Not thinking it no harm,
I jumped into that sailor's bed,
To keep him nice and warm.

He put his arms around me,
And kissed me there in bed,
Then, with his nine-inch Johnson bar, **  A Johnson bar is a speed or throttle control in a locomotive cab.  It became an early 20th Century ephemism for the penis.¯
He broke my maidenhead.

And early in the morning,
When that sailor boy awoke,
He reached into his pocket 
And he handed me a note.

"You take this, my darling,
For the wrong that I have done,
For in nine months you're going to have
A daughter or a son.

"And if it is a little girl
Just rock her on your knee,
But if it is a little boy,
Why, send him out to sea.

"With his bell-bottomed trousers,
And his jumper made of blue,
Let him climb up the masthead
Like his daddy used to do."

Now all ye pretty maidens,
A warning take from me:
Oh, never let a sailor put
His hand above your knee.

I let a sailor do it once
And you can plainly see,
He went away and left me with
A baby on my knee.