{"id":23819,"date":"2024-03-04T16:38:02","date_gmt":"2024-03-04T16:38:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/folksongandmusichall.com\/?page_id=23819"},"modified":"2024-03-05T07:20:27","modified_gmt":"2024-03-05T07:20:27","slug":"hypochondriac-the","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/folksongandmusichall.com\/index.php\/hypochondriac-the\/","title":{"rendered":"Hypochondriac, The"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
AKA<\/strong><\/td>A travelling doctor’s shop<\/td><\/tr>
First Published<\/td>1894<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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Writer\/composer<\/td>Charles Osborne <\/td>Roud<\/strong><\/td>RN25062<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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Music Hall Performers<\/strong><\/td>TE Dunville<\/td><\/tr>
Folk performances<\/strong><\/td>Collected from the singing of:<\/strong>
Connell, John; Ireland : Co. Clare; 1975
Modern performances<\/strong>
The Wolfetones<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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THE HYPOCHONDRIAC, or, A TRAVELLING DOCTOR'S SHOP\nWords and music by Charles Osborne; sung by T. E. Dunville\n\nI want to tell you about a pal \u2014 a beauty minus paint\nWho always thought he'd some sort of serious complaint.\nNo matter what the remedy, he always bought a dose.\nTo cure his ills he'd buy blue pills and bolt them by the gross.\nHe said he'd had the measles bad, the staggers and the ague,\nVaricose veins and Chancery Lanes, likewise the cattle plague.\nShivers, and shakes and various aches, and also papshelals,\nAnd I never saw such a man before for taking chemicals.\n\nHe wore a belt whenever he felt a pain in his tiddley push,\nA chemical vest to save his chest from cannoning off the cush.\nHe tried quinine and chloride of lime to cure the pippity pop,\nTill he became in the What's-a-name a travelling doctor's shop.<\/em>\n\nWhen the Asiatic cholera came, he swore he'd captured that,\nSo he bought some vaccination tools and practised on the cat.\nTo keep the influenza off that came down here and 'gripped' us,\nHe bathed his feet with turpentine and oil of eucalyptus.\nHe found a wart of a curious sort that hurt his sit-me-down,\nSo he bathed it, sir, with tincture of myrrh and wore a padded gown.\nI hinted once that I could see his bumps as plain as the Crystal Palace.\nHe told a quack he'd got an attack of aurora borealis. \n\nHe used to wear a nose machine whenever he went to bed.\nHe nailed his will to the window-sill in case they found him dead.\nHe lived on brimstone and treacle just to purify his blood,\nAnd never risked a bath in case he perished in the mud.\nOne day with a stroke of flibberty-bobs this poor young man was taken,\nSo off they went and the doctor sent some medicine to be shaken.\nThe servant girl she could not spell (for she'd been on the boozalem).\nShe shook him up instead of the stuff, and now he's in Jeruzalem.\n\n<\/pre>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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A music hall song of the 1890s seemingly only collected once from a traditional singer – from the singing of John Connell by Jim Caroll and Pat MacKenzie in 1975. You can hear John Connell’s version on the Clare County Library<\/a> site.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The song was originally published in 1894, written and composed by\u00a0Charles Osborne<\/a>\u00a0for the comedian\u00a0TE Dunville<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Irish rebel band, The Wolfetones sang their own version – closely based on the original, but changing the gender of the song’s subject.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
The Wolfetones sing their version, including some very strange darts…<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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