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:
- 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%3A29927
- Kilgarrif Sing Us
- Lyrics: Glostrad