| AKA | (Sweet) Polly Perkins of Paddington Green The brokenhearted milkman I’m a hard-working milkman |
| First published | 1863 |
| Lyrics | Harry Clifton | Music | Harry Clifton/Trad | Roud | RN430 |
| Music Hall performers | Harry Clifton |
| Folk performances | Source Singers Mrs Duncan, no date, Scotland Mrs Dickie, no date, Scotland Mrs Bowker, 1909, Lancashire, England Mrs HW Adams, 1931, Virginia, USA Horatio Luce, 1931, Vermont, USA William McIlwaine, 1932, Virginia, USA Elizabeth Ashton Garrett Purcell, 1934, Virginia, USA John Green, 1937/38, Tristan da Cunha Mrs Maud McShann Wasson, 1939, Mississippi, USA Mrs Gladys Ainsworth, 1941, Vermont, USA Jonathan Moses, 1943, New Hampshire, USA Mabel White Lansing, 1944, Massachusetts, USA SA Hopkins, 1953, Nova Scotia, Canada Mrs Henneberry, 1953, Nova Scotia, Canada Alice Mary Bond, 1953/54, Cambridgeshire, England Virginia Wood, 1975, Missouri, USA Tom Murphy, 1976, Newfoundland, Canada Bride Judge, 1978, Newfoundland, Canada Mabs Hall, 1980, Sussex, England |
I'm a broken hearted milkman in grief I'm arrayed Through keeping the company of a young servant maid Who lived on board and wages the house to keep clean In a gentleman's family, in Paddington Green. For she was as beautiful as a butterfly and proud as a queen Was pretty little Polly Perkins of Paddington Green. When I'd rattle in the morning and cry “Milk below” At the sound of my milk cans her face she did show With a smile upon her countenance and a laugh in her eye If I'd thought that she loved me I'd have laid down to die. Her eyes were as black as the pips of a pear No rose in the garden her cheeks could compare. Her hair hung in ringlets so beautiful and long I thought that she loved me but found I was wrong. When I asked her to marry me she said “Oh what stuff” And told me to drop it, for she'd had quite enough Of my nonsense. At the same time I'd been very kind But to marry a milkman she didn't feel inclined. “The man that has me must have silver and gold A chariot to ride in and be handsome and bold His hair must be curly as any watch spring And his whiskers as big as a brush for clothing. The words that she uttered went straight through my heart I sobbed and I sighed and I straight did depart With a tear on my eyelid as big as a bean I bid farewell to Polly and Paddington Green. In six months she married, that hardhearted girl But it was not a mi-lord and it was not an Earl It was not a baronet but a shade or two wuss It was a bow-legged conductor of a twopenny bus.
Harry Clifton, star of the early Music Halls, was a hugely successful singer-songwriter, and perhaps this is his best remembered song.
Polly P is widely recognised as a Music Hall song and it appears in numerous broadsides, printed collections and in the singing of many traditional singers on both sides of the Atlantic, there are over 90 entries in the Vaughn Williams Memorial Library.
The British library catalogue suggests that Polly Perkins was first published in 1865 (though some sources give 1863) with words and music both credited to Clifton, though he does seem to have a habit of adopting traditional tunes and claiming them for his own. Kilgarriff argues that the music was based on the traditional tune The Nightingales Sing.
Tony Pastor, the great American vaudeville/music hall entertainer sang the song as Polly Perkins of Washington Square, and George Ridley famously sang and wrote the parody Cushie Butterfield. Having said that, there are a wide range of other parodies including One of the Has-beens, a song about a folksong!
Sources:
- Lyrics: monologues.co.uk
- British Library catalogue entry
- British Library: Sheet Music (1865)
- 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%3A430
- Kilgarriff Sing Us
Last Updated on August 15, 2023 by John Baxter | Published: April 14, 2020
