Children's chant

[Jonathan Lighter]

I may be able to help you out there, young man.  The 1914-18 version of "I Don't Want to Join the Army" (based on an English music-hall tune) was as follows:

(NOT FOR OFFENDABLE PEOPLE !)

I don't want to be a soldier !
I don't want to go to war !
I'd rather hang around
Piccadilly Underground,
Living on the earnings of a lay-dee ty-pist !
I don't want a bayonet up my arsehole !
I don't want my ballocks shot away !
I'd rather stay in England,
Merry, merry England,
And fornicate my fucking life away !

Then of course there is the interwar American frat song that goes,

'Twas a cold winter's evening,
The guests were all leaving,
O'Reilly was closing the bar.
And roughly he said,
To a Lady in Red -
"Get out ! You can't stay where you are !"

She wept a sad tear in her bucket of beer,
As she thought of the cold night ahead,
When a gentleman dapper
Stepped out of the crapper,
And these are the words that he saaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiiiiid :

"Her mother never told her
All the things a young girl should know -
About the ways of college men,
And how they come and go. (OOOOOOOOO moooost - leeee goooooooooooo !!!!!)
Age has now taken her beauty,
And Sin has left its sad scar.
So think of your mothers and sisters, boys,
And let her....sleep under...the baaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrr !

And so we end another trip down Memory Lane, brought to you by Serutan.
And Serutan, spelled backwards, is "Nature's" !

JL

Wilson Gray <wilson.gray at RCN.COM> wrote:
---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Wilson Gray
Subject: Re: Children's chant
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

On Feb 1, 2005, at 10:13 AM, George Thompson wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: George Thompson
> Subject: Re: Children's chant
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> --------
>
> Larry Horn submits:
>
>> and then there was the related (via Col. Bogey rather than Disney, of
>> course) verse, discussed on the list some years ago,
>>
>> Hitler # had only one, left ball,
>> Goering # had two but they were small.
>> Himmler # had something similar,
>> And Goebbals
>> Had no balls
>> At all.
>>
>
> Brendan Behan quotes this in Borstal Boy.
>
> GAT
>
> George A. Thompson
> Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern
> Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately.
>

This was also very popular as a barracks time-killer and
mood-lightener, when I was in the Army, except that it was Hitler who
had no balls at all.

There were a couple of other barracks ballads that I can't quite
recall, but which someone else may recognize.

I don't want to join the Army
I don't want to go to war
I don't want to get me arse shah-toff
Etc.

?...?
?...?
A gentleman dapper
Stepped out of the crapper
?...?
?...?
Her mother never told (or "taught"?) her
The things a young girl should know
Etc.

There was also a chant used only by NCO's to troops being formed up for
inspection:

Dress right!
Dress!
Dress and cover!
Dress and cover!
Dress it up and cover down!
Eighteen inches all around!
Dress and cover!
Dress and cover!

-Wilson Gray


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