{"id":11599,"date":"2021-07-22T06:44:04","date_gmt":"2021-07-22T06:44:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/folksongandmusichall.com\/?page_id=11599"},"modified":"2021-07-25T15:07:26","modified_gmt":"2021-07-25T15:07:26","slug":"we-all-go-to-work-but-father","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/folksongandmusichall.com\/index.php\/we-all-go-to-work-but-father\/","title":{"rendered":"We all go to work but father"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
AKA<\/strong><\/td><\/td><\/tr>
First Published<\/td>1891<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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Writer\/composer<\/td>Leslie Reed \/ Warwick Williams<\/td>Roud<\/strong><\/td>RN4782<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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Music Hall Performers<\/strong><\/td>JC Heffron<\/td><\/tr>
Folk performances<\/strong><\/td>Traditional singers seem to have taken up the version of the song rewritten by Jean Havez see Everybody works but father<\/a><\/em><\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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From monologues.co.uk<\/a>\/Davison\n\nOh, we are a happy family and I mention it with pride\nThere's father, mother, me and sister Fan\nIt would be quite a model group that meets around the fireside\nBut father he is such a lazy man\nHe has not done a day's work since the morning he was wed\nAnd that is five and twenty years ago\nNo thought of work, in fact, has ever got into his head\nHe's the laziest man I ever yet did know\n\nSPOKEN: Lazy! Why, he's bone idle! Never does anything at all. I wouldn't care if we set him a bad example, but we don't. In fact\u2014<\/em>\n\nWe all go to work but father\nAnd he stays at home all day\nHe sits by the fire with a quart of beer\nAnd he smokes a ten-inch clay\nMother works at the washtub\nSo does my sister Fan\nI've met lazy men in my time, now and then,\nBut a champion is our old man<\/em>.\n\nHe's in three sick societies, and that's the reason why\nHe vows to work he never will turn out\nHe groans about his liver, then he'll hug his big toe and cry\n'Good gracious! Here's my old complaint, the gout!'\nIt seems to work he wasn't worth above a pound a week\nThough his was always 'a very trying job'\nAnd so each club in turn, he patronises, so to speak\nBy receiving just its merry thirty bob\n\nSPOKEN: Yes, he belongs to the \"Anti-work-yourself-to-death Association.\" He's the secretary of it. Ah! and he abides by the rules to the very letter, and that's one reason why\u2014<\/em>\n\nWhen the brokers vowed one day they'd come, because we owed the rent\nDear mother said, 'We'd better shoot the moon'\nWe packed the goods upon a truck, at twelve at night we went\nBut father was an obstinate old coon\nHe wouldn't move an inch; he wouldn't let us take his chair\nSo that we left him there you may reply\nHe said our heartless conduct should be punished, I declare\nBut we banged the door and shouted out, 'Good-bye'\n\nSPOKEN: There's cheek for you! \"Our heartless conduct,\" \"miss him when he's gone,\" and so on! But HE didn't stop long. When we'd got the new place cosy\u2014all the pictures hung, carpets down and bedsteads fixed, a knocking came at the street door, and there were two boys, with father stuck on his chair, and two long poles shoved underneath, like Guy Fawkes. He'd just waited till he thought all the work was done, and then he gave the boys two pence to bring him home. I wouldn't care if he did something sometimes, but he doesn't.\n\nHe was standing outside our door one day with his hands in his pockets, when a gentleman asked him the way to the post office. Just to show how lazy he is, he pointed with his foot and said, \"Up there.\" The gentleman said, \"If you can show me a lazier trick than that, I'll give you half-a-crown.\" Our old man replied, \"Alright, come and put it in my waistcoat pocket.\" I expect when he's pegging out he'll want somebody else to draw his last breath for him. So now you can believe me when I say\u2014<\/em>\n\n<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
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A big hit in the 1890s, later re-written in 1905 as Everybody works but father<\/em> <\/a>and in that form was taken up by traditional singers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
 JC Heffron (1857-1934) was a successful comic in the 1880s and 90s who is not well-remembered today. His two most famous songs were this one and Where did you get that hat?<\/em> Notices in The Era <\/em>suggest he may have had some early success as part of double act – Heffron and Melaney<\/em> – described as “good Irish Knockabout comedians” (The Era, <\/em>5 Sept 1880). The double act was short-lived and Heffron only appeared solo from 1881 on. He seems to have found most work outside London.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Sources:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n