Mucking about the garden

AKA Muckin’ about in the garden
First Published 1929
Lyrics Q Cumber (Lesley Sarony) Music Lesley Sarony Roud RN5373

Music Hall Performers Jack Hylton with Lesley Sarony and Tommy Handley
Folk performances Source Singers
Fred Moss and Daudy Dockerill, 1964/65, Suffolk, England
James Smith, 1975 to 79, Suffolk, England
George Spicer, 1977, Sussex, England

We're a happy family, I'd like you all to know. 
We live with Uncle Joe, in a little bungalow.
It has got a garden and it keeps him on the go. 
When a friend says, "Where's your uncle?" We just answer: Oh!

He's mucking about the garden, always on the go. 
Seeds begin to show. Weeds begin to grow. 
Mucking about the garden, dear old Uncle Joe 
Works for hours among the flowers, and then begins to crow:

Everything is lovely-uvely everywhere, everywhere. 
Morning noon and night he's on the go. Oh!
Mucking about the garden, dear old Uncle Joe Sings, 
"Ripe tomatoes, apples or plums": Watching his onion grow. 

Uncle Joe, he thought that it was time to settle down
He'd found a girl in town, by the name of Learie Brown
I said "If he gets wed he'll never have a family,
For its cert that on his wedding night he's sure to be ...

He's mucking about the garden, always on the go.
Seeds begin to show. Weeds begin to grow.
Mucking about the garden, dear old Uncle Joe
Works for hours among the flowers, and then begins to crow:

Everything is lovely-uvely everywhere, everywhere.
Morning noon and night he's on the go. Oh!
Mucking about the garden, dear old Uncle Joe Sings,
"Ripe tomatoes, apples or plums": Giving his nose a blow



Everything is lovely-uvely everywhere, everywhere.
Morning noon and night he's on the go. Oh!
Mucking about the garden, dear old Uncle Joe Sings,
Sits among the cabbages and peas, watching his onions grow!

Another music hall song of the early 20th century still being sung in the 1960s and 70s by source singers in the pubs of south-east England. Neil Lanham recorded it from the singing of Fred Moss and Daudy Dockerill in the mid-1960s, available on the CD Comic songs of the Stour Valley.

Written and performed in the Halls by the rather wonderful Lesley Sarony, who also wrote I lift up my finger and I say tweet tweet and Jollity Farm

Sources:

  • VWML entry
  • Kilgarrif Sing Us
  • Lyrics transcribed from Sarony’s recording below
  • Comic songs of the Stour Valley, Helions Bumpstead NLCD 8, obtainable from the Oral Traditions website