Tickle-ickle-um

Transcribed from 1929 recording

I've got a very funny way with me
I want to tickle everybody I see
I'm all over them, if I get a chance
It's a quid to a coconut, I'll make 'em dance
I to a party went last night
The man in the corner had a face like a kite
Just like a Dutch plate troubled with the bile
Nobody there could make him smile

So.. I tickled him, tickle-ickle-ickled him 
I put the 'fluence on the 'fluence on the 'flu
I tickled him, tickle-ickle-ickled him
And he was particularly ticklish too
He started wriggling, a-wriggling and giggling
And laughed till the tears in his eyes did come
I had some fun with him before I was done with him
I gave him tickle-ickle-ickle-um.

One of the ladies, of the name of Bling
She made such a raid on the beer and gin
She got troublesome and took to the floor
She was chock-full of liquor but she wanted more
Somebody said there's none to spare
She got hysterical and tore out her hair
A pail full of water down her back they threw
But she wanted brandy she wouldn't come to

So.. I tickled her, tickle-ickle-ickled her
I put the 'fluence on the 'fluence on the 'flu
I tickled her, tickle-ickle-ickled her
And she was particularly ticklish too
She started wriggling, a-wriggling and giggling
And laughed till the tears in her eyes did come
She rolled me on the floor, oh I was very sore
But I gave her tickle-ickle-ickle-um.

Five in the morning I was put to bed
Along with a navvy with the snuffles in his head
He laid solid to the chimney stack
With his cold feet planted in the middle of my back
Just like a foghorn he did snore
I started kicking but he snored all the more
I gave him a bust, a wallop on the nose
But he didn't stop snoring, so I turned down the clothes..


I tickled him, tickle-ickle-ickled him
I put the 'fluence on the 'fluence on the 'flu
I tickled him, tickle-ickle-ickled him
And he was particularly ticklish too
He started wriggling, a-wriggling and giggling
And laughed till the tears in his eyes did come
Out of bed he spurt, water jug, wet shirt!
I gave him tickle-ickle-ickle-um.

This is a British Music Hall song which turns up on an American “Hillbilly” record in the 1920s. It appears in the NEHI 3 CD Box Set My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean – Mike Yates wrote in his review:

The New Arkansas Travellers … are one of life’s mysteries.  The singer, we think, was one A P Bishop who was accompanied on Tickled ‘Em and Handy Man by a guitar and mouthorgan(s).  Both songs employ the same tune and are clearly from the British Music Hall stage.  In fact, Handy Man is the same song that Cyril Poacher recorded as Slap Dab (Whitewash) and which can be heard on the MT CD Plenty of Thyme (MTCD303).  It was original called The Amateur Whitewasher and was written in 1896 by F Murray & F Leigh.  The Travellers’ recordings were made in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1928, although it has been occasionally suggested that the two tracks may have actually been recorded in England.  The singer certainly sounds to be English (from the East-End of London?) but he remains a biographical blank and one does wonder just what the Americans made of him! 

Mike Yates sleevenotes NEH3X1

Thanks to the wonders of the Internet we now know that this song was written by TW Connor and was a hit at the turn-of-the-century for Pat Rafferty.

Pat Rafferty (1861-1952) was the stage name of Henry Brown, a popular Music Hall comic for over 40 years. He was born in Birmingham of Irish parents, and started singing career at the age of 12 by entering a series of pub singing competitions. He was fond of saying that he had sung in every music hall in the British Empire and whilst he was known for his Irish songs his repertoire varied from broadly comic and nonsense songs to high-flown ballads. According to Macqueen Pope, when Irish regiments were fighting in the Boer War:

Rafferty became extremely patriotic on behalf of of the Emerald Isle, asking the British public [in song]: “What you think of the Irish now?” And informing them that if they had been in the habit of calling them traitors because agitators made troubles, “You can’t call them traitors now!”

MacQueen Pope, p376

He loved playing to Irish audiences and would tell the story of the time in a Dublin music hall when the audience refused to let him leave the stage and the police were called to clear the theatre – prompting a riot which continued on the street outside. He retired from the stage to set himself up in business first as a builder and later as an antique dealer.