{"id":8127,"date":"2021-01-09T11:15:01","date_gmt":"2021-01-09T11:15:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/folksongandmusichall.com\/?page_id=8127"},"modified":"2021-01-09T11:17:24","modified_gmt":"2021-01-09T11:17:24","slug":"what-a-mouth","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/folksongandmusichall.com\/index.php\/what-a-mouth\/","title":{"rendered":"What a mouth"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
AKA<\/strong><\/td><\/td><\/tr>
First Published<\/td>1906<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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Writer\/composer<\/td>RP Weston<\/td>Roud<\/strong><\/td>RN32455<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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Music Hall Performers<\/strong><\/td>Harry Champion<\/td><\/tr>
Folk performances<\/strong><\/td>Source Singers<\/strong>
none<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Jimmy Banks would be a handsome feller\nIf he had another face and a different smeller\nBut his mouth queers him from winning in a beauty show\nFor it looks just like a steam-boat funnel\nOr a railway arch, or the Blackwall Tunnel\nAnd you can't see Jim when he opens it wide, you know\nAnd when poor Jim goes walking about\nYou can hear kids all hollering out\n\nWhat a mouth! What a mouth! What a North and South\nKer-i-key! What a mouth he's got\nWhen he was a youngster, Oh Lord Lovell\nWhy, his poor old Mother used to feed him with a shovel\nWhat a gap! Poor chap! He's never been known to laugh\nFor if he did, it's a penny to a quid\nThat his face'd fall in half.<\/em>\n\nThough his great big mouth it ain't all honey\nHe can whisper in his own ear, ain't it funny?\nBut to lay the dust he has to drink a lot, oh my\nAnd he got so tight one foggy morning\nThat he laid down flat in the roadway yawning\nAs a poor old man was delivering coals near by\nAnd as he went to shift the load\nHe saw Jim's mouth out in the road.\n\nWhat a mouth! What a mouth! What a North and South\nKer-i-key! What a mouth he's got\nThe coalman, an old short-sighted feller\nSaw his mouth wide open, and took it for the cellar\nAnd he shot the lot right into his mouth, no joke\nFor Jim, poor soul, \u2018s got a tummy full of coal\nAnd he coughs up lumps of coke!<\/em>\n\nIn the tap room of the Rose and Thistle\nJimmy often has a try to wet his whistle\nBut he can't succeed until he's had a hundred \u2018pots'\nFirst a hundred pots of beer he'll swallow\nThen as all his teeth at the back are hollow\nHe can still find room for a dozen or so \u2018rum hots'\nA new barmaid came there one night\nShe saw Jim's face and yelled with fright.\n\nWhat a mouth! What a mouth! What a North and South\nKer-i-key! What a mouth he's got\nHe opened it wide and the barmaid hollered\nFor a pewter pot he had accidentally swallowed\nIt was hot, that pot, soon melted and now he sits\nDown by the fire with a little bit of wire\nAnd he hooks up two bob bits.<\/em>\n\nJimmy's wife had such a lovely baby\nWith a mouth as big as Jim's, or larger, may be\nAnd I shan't forget the morning that he cut one tooth\nWhen the poor young ma heard the baby blubber\nFor a nice hard teat that was made of rubber\nShe at once took him to the chemist, and, it's the truth\nThey could not get inside the door\nTill they shut the baby's mouth, oh lor.\n\nWhat a mouth! What a mouth! What a North and South\nKer-i-key! What a mouth he's got\n'As baby's ateething' said his mummy\n'Will you please, sir, let me have a penny rubber dummy?'\nSaid the cove 'Bai Jove' as he sucked a big jujube\n'There's no rubber teat for a penny that'll fit\nHe wants a twopenny tube.'<\/em>\n\nJimmy Banks in bed one night was snoring\nAnd the neighbours round about thought a lion was roaring\nThen the old Dutch clock, that was hanging on the bedroom wall\nFrom the nail fell into his big mouth wallop\nJim woke, and yelled, 'Go for Doctor Jalap.'\nSaid his wife, 'No fear! You have swallowed the clock, that's all'\nAnd now the people, isn't it fine\nLook down his throat to see the time.\n\nWhat a mouth! What a mouth! What a North and South\nKer-i-key! What a mouth he's got\nThe works of the old Dutch clock keep whizzing\nIn his rum-tum-tummy like a lot of sherbet fizzing\nAnd his wife, what strife, can't sleep of a night, that's right\nCause against his tum she can hear the pendulum\nGoing tock-tock-tick all night.<\/em><\/pre>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
A classic Cockney song from the early 20th century halls. It was remembered by Charles Keeping as being sung at family parties in 1930s Lambeth, but it’s not really been collected from the singing of a source singer, so doesn’t really feature my lists as a “folk song”. It was written by the prolific \u00a0RP Weston<\/a>\u00a0and sung by\u00a0Harry Champion<\/a>\u00a0in the Halls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As revived by Tommy Steele in 1960:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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