| AKA | I like scented soap |
| First Published | 1929 |
| Writer/composer | Weston and Lee | Roud | RN21985 |
| Music Hall Performers | Gracie Fields |
| Folk performances | Source Singers Modern performances |
[Transcribed from recording on Youtube] Having presents given is the greatest joy in life Some folks choose a crate of scotch and others choose a wife. Married folks get cruets and teetotallers get tea, But if you want to know the present you can send to me— I like scented soap! I like scented soap! Since scented soap was sent to me, I've been as clean as clean can be. I like scented soap as in my bath I frolic, So if you send me scented soap, don't send carbolic! A tramp went to a workhouse, having trod a dusty path They offered him all sorts of soap, but he refused to bath. They offered him sweet lavender, and then they said he might Have his bath with violet, so he yelled with delight [spoken] The other day my young man said to me "Olive", he always calls me olive, "May I kiss your palm, olive". I said "Not on your life, boy!". I'm not letting him kiss me in the moonlight any more, I'm so fond of soap I'm making him kiss me in the sun light ...
A late Music Hall song, written by the prolific Weston and Lee and recorded in 1929 by Gracie Fields. It was remembered and sung by Rex Gage in the pubs of south-east of Suffolk, England in the 1960s. It features on the CD Comic songs of the Stour Valley, which celebrates the songs sung in Suffolk pubs in the mid-1960s, as collected by Neil Lanham.
Gracie’s recording:
Sources:
- Entries in the Roud Indexes at the Vaughn Williams Memorial Library: https://archives.vwml.org/search/all:single[folksong-broadside-books]/0_50/all/score_desc/extended-roudNo_tr%3A21985
- Kilgarrif Sing Us
- Lyrics: described from Youtube recording below
- Comic songs of the Stour Valley, Helions Bumpstead NLCD 8, obtainable from the Oral Traditions website
Last Updated on January 5, 2021 by John Baxter | Published: January 5, 2021
