Side by side (Danny Brazil parody)

AKA
First Published 1927 (orig)
Writer/composer unknown, parody of Harry Wood song Roud RN29927

Music Hall Performers Florrie Forde (orig)
Folk performances Source Singers
Brazil, Danny ; England: Gloucestershire; 1977

I saw a couple last evening 
Gum sucking down in our lane
Boys, I wouldn’t do a thing like that 
If I had my time a gain
She was a calling him honey 
He was a calling her pet
That was just the way that me and my old girl 
Fell in the net

Oh I went for a walk with my honey
May be you think we looked funny
We walked many a mile 
Past many a stile 
Side by side
And when we got tired of walking 
We stopped and we started to talking
Looking in one another’s eyes 
Telling nohing but lies, 
Side by side

If I hadn’t stopped there talking 
Beneath the garden wall
If I’d have kept on walking 
I wouldn’t bin married at all

Oh you boys who’s about to begin it,
Take a tip from a mug that fell in it,
Don’t stop to talk, 
Keep on the walk
Side by side.

Now, if you take a couple first married, 
They’re sloppy to a degree
But any man could be happy 
If they wasn’t such a mug as me.
She’d drink it out of a bucket, 
She learnt the habit from me
Only just the other day we went out on a spree
 
Oh I just won a barrel of money
I went on a spree with my honey
We was having our fling 
Till she started to sing
Side by side.
My wife has a voice like someone being throttled
When the landlord said 
’Give her a bottle
There isn’t no doubt they’ll have to get out
Side by side.’
 
My wife with a face like leather she refused to budge a stride
So they bunged us out together
And we landed on the opposite side

Oh the boys come along and they lynched us
Then a bobby come along and he pinched us
To end a sad tale, we landed in jail
Side by side.
 
Now I went home to my wife it was late the other night
And when that I reached home I saw a pretty sight
And the doctor said ’Hello sonny’
Maybe you think that it’s funny
I said with a grin
’Give it to him
He’s outside’

Sure’ he said ’you ought to be a proud daddy’
I said ’Is it a girl or a laddie’
He never spoke then I said ’What’s the joke?’
Then he replied:
’You’ve caused a great sensation that tongue will never tell
You’ve got my congratulation and old king George’s as well’
For it’s up the stairs I started
And I fell in the room broken-hearted
There on my life lay three and the wife
Side by side! 

The original Side by side by Harry Wood, was an American Tin Pan Alley song sung in the halls by Florrie Forde. However, in late 1920s Britain, Music Hall was no longer the only way that most working people got to hear new songs and it would have been heard on the radio and elsewhere. So we can’t confidently say that Music Hall was the source of traditional versions of this song…

This particular parody was collected by Gwilym Davies from the singing of Danny Brazil and is available to hear on the Glostrad site. It appears to be unique.

Sources: